The Steep and Thorny Way
by Liber Fatum
Summary: Lelou had often wondered, what different course her life could have taken had she been born a man. Perhaps she could have been stronger, faster. Perhaps she could have persuaded her father to care. Perhaps she could have even been able to escape the fate of being drawn back into the Imperial family. But as much as she could have wished otherwise, she was no man. Fem!Lelouch.
1. Beware the Ides of March

Chapter 1 : Beware the Ides of March

* * *

_15th March 2016 a.t.b._

_The day of_

* * *

He sat alone in his favourite corner of Grey's nursing the cognac in his hand. The low din of noise made by the club's gambling patrons just beyond the elaborately carved panel screen that afforded him privacy offered him a meagre solace from his glum thoughts.

His Royal Guard covertly keeping vigil in strategic positions notwithstanding, it was the first time he had visited Grey's unaccompanied by either fanfare or guest—whether of the female persuasion or otherwise. So here he was, left only to the company of his alcohol and his sorrows.

_A month gone by already, and the King Puzzle still eludes me_.

Perhaps he should just swallow his pride. Laugh sheepishly, twiddle his thumbs and beg the only other person still living who he was pretty certain knew the answer. Anything would be better at least than all this scurrying around that amounted to nothing in the end.

Then perhaps he could return to his projects without feeling like he owed something to the dead.

And then it would _also_ be back to the ordinary business of the day, Clovis mused, where he'd be swarmed by _them_ again. By the war-hawks, by the penny-pinchers, by the pencil-pushers. Swamped by all the matters that 'the Viceroy _just_ must oversee'.

_Oh joy_.

He sighed despondently.

All these 'duties' were just so _boring_. And unnecessary besides.

Give him the grander, more meaningful projects any day! Opening museums enshrining their glorious culture and art! Bringing excitement to the no-doubt dreary lives of his dear subjects (and generating income at the same time!) with a new amusement park! Let the peons handle the other petty details by all means.

But could he avoid those irksome duties? Apparently not.

Though he was apparently absolute ruler of this miserable island province, he had come to realise with dismay that he could _not_ send away with impunity those who were by all rights his _servants_ (public 'servants', military 'service', palace 'help', he saw no real difference; mere semantics!) Nor could he shirk away from at least _appearing_ to listen to them.

Well, technically he _could_ if he so chose.

But alas, reality was a harsh mistress as experience had shown. Exercising his sovereign rights in that manner had only earned him a long-distance long-suffering 'heart-to-heart' with his dear, esteemed brother Prince Prime Minister himself—an ordeal that Clovis, as a man of great dignity, would rather not inflict upon himself again.

_He called me in the wee hours too, _he recalled as he swirled his half-empty glass grumpily. _No doubt thoroughly enjoying that line about his 'sincere regrets that we lived in different timezones'. _

And that was the same man he would have to go crawling to, begging for absolution, if he wished an end to this misery.

Clovis set his glass down hard in annoyance.

The indistinct formless noise from beyond the screen swelled somewhat, hushed murmurs tinged with surprise and speculation. Something, or someone, had managed to pique the interest of the crowd. He peered through the screen with mild curiosity, hoping for an entertaining diversion from his thoughts.

A little semi-circle of spectators clustered around a nearby table, observing a chess match between the most unlikely pair. He recognised one of the players on sight; red hair, blotchy freckled skin and obnoxious loud-mouth, it was hard to miss the Viscount Echlin, Hamish Mackenzie.

The Mackenzies were an old titled family from before the Humiliation at Edinburgh and subsequent flight of their forefathers to the New World. Being one of the few Exiles wise or lucky enough to have previously made investments in what was to be their new home, their modern-day brood now presided over a formidable shipping empire that freight cargo from across the globe. Prodigal son and heir to the family fortunes, Lord Hamish resided here in Area 11 as representative of Mackenzie interests, particularly in the transport of Area 11's Sakuradite to the far-flung regions of the Britannian empire.

His opponent, on the other hand, was a slight young man Clovis must admit he could not identify, other than a nagging sense of familiarity. The lad was of slightly below average Britannian height, though he cut a fine figure with his sleek dark hair and elegant bearing.

_He cannot be older than high school age_. Intrigued, he wondered which family the lad hailed from. After all, he must have fairly good connections to be in establishments that normally permit only those who were of age. And besides, Grey's did not let just _anyone_ waltz through their doors.

"You there." He called out to the man waiting in attendance just beyond the screen. "Summon the owner."

It did not take long for Grey to arrive. After all, it did not do to keep royalty waiting.

The slender, sharp-featured man bowed smoothly. "How may I be of service, your highness?"

"My compliments first, Grey. This is a splendid drink." He gestured to the bottle of cognac.

The man smiled. "Ah yes, the Louis XIII Black Pearl." He glided a single gloved finger lightly over the dark crystal surface of the bottle.

"Cognac, as your highness is surely aware, is a rather precious commodity in the Empire, no thanks to European trade sanctions." Grey said reflectively. "But the Black Pearls… now those are exceedingly rare, even in the EU. Very _very_ exclusive; only ten decanters are available here in Area 11, four of which call Grey's home. Our establishment's pride and joy."

"And now you have only three." _And how it must gall you._

"Ahahaha, yes of course, your highness." Grey laughed, though Clovis noticed with the experience of one raised in the nest of intrigue called the Imperial Court that the man's polite mirth did not quite extend to his sharp, cold grey-green eyes.

"I take it then that _exclusivity_ still remains a creed here at your establishment?"

"But of course. Only the finest men and women are allowed through our doors. Riffraff have no place here at Grey's, you can rest assured of that, my prince."

"And what of children?" Clovis asked mildly.

"I beg your pardon, highness?"

"What of _children_? Do children have a place here… at Grey's? Like that boy over there?" He motioned at the lad.

Grey smiled genially, remaining annoyingly unperturbed. He clasped his hands fluidly behind his back and began speaking with aplomb.

"The rules say he doesn't, that is true. The rules have their place and technically they apply to all men equally. But, it is _also_ true that we of Britannia have always held that men are _not_ created equal. _Exceptions_ to the rules exist that transcend the rules that govern lesser beings. Exceptions like your royal self, highness or even… those who by birth, skill or charm rise up and out from the faceless multitude. Young Lelouch, I have found, is one such a person; and so despite his youth, I have always personally welcomed his presence here at Grey's."

Clovis must admit he could find no real fault with the man's eloquent, if rather elaborate words. He turned his gaze to the lad that commanded such esteem from the owner. _That_ was a commendation he could not ignore, if he ever heard one.

The angle from which he could observe the lad's table afforded him little details on how the match was proceeding. Though, from how Lord Hamish was loudly braying in derision, the advantage evidently belonged to him. The lad however remained serene and placid. He could not entirely make out the young man's features due to the dim lighting of the club. But what little he could observe—the chiseled high cheekbones, the cool dignified poise and the lustrous black hair—he found appealing. Clovis was, of course, a man for the _ladies_, but he saw no harm nor shame in appreciating beauty when it appeared before him.

"Lelouch, you said his name was." He inquired distractedly, his eyes still fixed on the other table. "Lelouch…?"

The lad did something peculiar then. Picking up one of his black pieces, he then held it aloft in an apparent taunt. An action that left Lord Hamish stunned for a moment, before he started bursting out in great guffaws of laughter.

It was the black King the lad held in his hand, a coldly confident smirk on his young pretty face.

"Lamperouge, your highness. His name is Lelouch Lamperouge,"

Clovis' heart meanwhile was beating a rapid tattoo of stunned excitement.

_Could it be?_ he thought wonderingly. Could it be that the answer to his puzzle had finally appeared? Unasked and unsought for, here; in such a place, in such a serendipitous moment, when he had all but given up?

He turned a resolute gaze to the quizzical owner and declared commandingly.

"I should like to meet with this Lelouch Lamperouge. In person."

* * *

_February 2016 a.t.b. _

_One month before_

* * *

"Bartley, why must the King lead?"

The portly General blinked, taken aback by his prince's tense interjection into their previously one-sided conversation.

The branches of the garden's trees hung low with the weight of accumulated snow, the grounds stark and barren. It was a clear if somewhat nippy mid-February winter afternoon. Despite the chilly air, the Viceroy of Area 11 and Third Prince of the Holy Empire of Britannia had deemed it fit to ensconce himself in his gardens; dressed warmly and fashionably as a matter of course.

Seated upon a wooden stool and brandishing a rapidly drying brush, Clovis tapped a foot restlessly awaiting his answer.

"Well?" He pressed impatiently.

The General however still remained bewildered by the Viceroy's sudden participation, having grown used to his prince's usual reticence.

_Perhaps Bartley may not have been the right person to ask, _he realised in dismay.

Though he supposed he could not really blame the General for being slow on the uptake. After all, he himself had been so utterly engrossed in his current project—a bold acrylic panorama of the Tokyo Settlement—that he had studiously ignored the odious reports the General had insisted on giving. Some frivolous trouble in the South to do with the JAF (JRF?) as he vaguely recalled.

But then a most singular realisation had struck him just then, and left him reeling with a confounding puzzle and the burning need to solve it. He could not help but ask the General for his professional opinion, despite his unprepossessing appearance.

Clovis gave the man's attire a sidelong glance, feeling somewhat repulsed. Now that he thought of it, the man's frightfully tacky outfit did not exactly inspire him with much confidence.

"Forgive me my foolish inattention, my prince. I was much distracted by the beauty of your highness' magnificent painting. Could you kindly repeat your words, er— if it is not too much trouble, your highness?" Bartley finally spoke, a genteel, if much flustered reply.

_The man -does- have an appreciation for art, and proper manners at least_, he belatedly revised.

In acknowledgment of the General's rare quality, he graciously decided on a show of magnanimity, obliging the rotund man's nervous request. He reiterated his 'King Puzzle'— as he had decided to dub it—to the now-attentively listening officer, word for word.

Oddly enough, the General paled in response and grew increasingly distraught.

Bemused, he wondered if the man thought it to be a trick question. Honestly, his was a rather simple, straightforward question, really. Well, it _was_ a somewhat technical problem, he will concede. But weren't all those military higher-ups supposed to be master strategists? He wasn't exactly asking for the world on a silver platter.

_Unless… _

A sneaking suspicion filled him. Clovis felt he just might have an inkling as to Bartley's dilemma. But now he was more than ever before interested in learning the General's reply.

_If only to ascertain the man's quality, of course_, he told himself.

"Come now, Bartley. Whatever your answer may be, I promise I shan't bite." Clovis assured the nervously fidgeting officer cheerfully. _Well, not literally that is_, he thought snidely.

After much quaking, Bartley finally stammered out his reply.

"I-I believe, er—that is, i-it is my most er— h-humble belief that it is His Majesty's ordained r-right to lead, yo-your highness. His sa-_sacred_ right by superior blood and all that is pr-proper and just in this good world. Tha-that is why he leads, my prince, er—I mean—that is to say… that is why he _must._"

_Bless me, he really did think I was questioning his loyalties!_

Clovis laughed airily, pleased at having been right. "Indeed so, my good man! Indeed so!"

"But no one said anything about my imperial Father, His Majesty the Emperor, Bartley. I _did _say King and not Emperor now, did I not?" He grinned, waving off Bartley's horrified apologies easily.

_I really should phrase the question better next time_, he thought ruefully. Not that he would ask Bartley again, of course. He would not hold out hope that the plodding fool could give him a favourable answer even if asked properly.

But the man _did_ show some potential in aiding him in say… other 'endeavours', he mused as he critically appraised the fidgeting officer.

_A final test then_.

"Still, that is a very fine answer," Clovis pronounced while carefully observing the General's mien. "Indeed 'tis the greatness of the Britannian imperial _bloodline_ that has thus far led Britannia to her lofty heights, and so it shall ever be! So long as His Majesty, who is Britannia incarnate, and his _royal children_ after him, descended of that same superior stock, command the _unswerving_ love and fidelity of their subjects, so shall our Holy Empire prosper and endure."

He felt glee surge within him as Bartley feverishly nodded in agreement. The violent, nearly fanatical gleam in the General's eyes in response to his carefully stressed suggestions had pointed to the man's fervent loyalty to the Imperial bloodline.

And in time, to him.

Clovis' mind whirled with all kinds of interesting possibilities; his little King Puzzle momentarily swept aside in the wake of this new potential acquisition.

_A fool. _

_But a loyal, pliant fool it would seem. I could have a use for a man like Bartley Asprius._

* * *

_Early March 2016 a.t.b. _

_One week before_

* * *

The accursed King Puzzle would continue to remain unsolved despite his best efforts. His beloved projects laid neglected and incomplete as his obsession consumed the better part of his energies.

Three full weeks had passed and still he found himself no closer to an ideal answer despite asking what must have been more than two-thirds of the intelligentsia residing in Area 11 and then some. Dejected, he decided on a last-ditch attempt of Bartley's assessment again, fool the man may be. If words of wisdom could come out of the mouths of babes, he had reasoned, why should his ever-elusive answer not come from the mouth of a simpleton?

And so, here they were again. In the reincarnation of his favourite garden atop his palace.

Clovis turned his gaze from the Settlement below and faced the waiting officer.

"I require your opinion, my friend."

Bartley bowed reverently. "I live but to serve, your highness."

"Quite." He smiled. "I asked this of you once actually, but three weeks past. About the King leading?"

The General nodded in recognition.

"In truth, Bartley, I had meant to ask that in _chess_, why must the King lead? It was a strange strategy I had once heard in passing, one that I could not entirely grasp. And so I asked you." He explained. "As a military officer of your standing and vast experience, you must be well-versed in the intricacies of strategy and tactics _much_ more than I, a prince of peace, could ever be."

As expected, that little scrap of flattery gratified the General sufficiently to set him firmly at the task._ I am_ _getting better at this_, Clovis thought in idle bemusement.

Bartley ruminated, brows furrowed in deep thought.

"I cannot see how the King _ever_ leads in chess, my prince." He answered at length. "In the first place, the goal of every game of chess is to strategically corner the enemy King into a position of no retreat. Consequently, a player's primary strategy for his King should necessarily be one of defence. For a King to _lead_, to take an aggressive role in a game of chess, is the height of folly and recklessness."

The General rapidly paled. "B-but of course that is but my humble and flawed opinion, your highness! A man of the military I may be, but at chess I am merely amateur!"

"Be at ease, Bartley." Clovis sighed. "Your opinion is not displeasing. In fact, it coincides entirely with mine own."

And so he finds himself disappointed yet again.

It was a sensible answer. One that cannot be faulted. And one so similar to the answers given by the countless other learned men and women that he had asked previously. It was after all the very first thing any beginner of the game would learn.

But he had thought, perhaps even expected, that there should be _more_. A layer of the painting he had neglected to uncover. A different angle of light to illuminate the subject. One that when aligned and directed just _so, _would reveal something rare and brilliant.

There _must_ be something more. Else, why would he have lost to _her_ time and again?

"'Tis a strange notion, this King business. One that I had never comprehended." Clovis gazed pensively at the garden grounds, the bright yellow dandelions pushing through the melting snow suddenly seeming oddly fascinating.

_It will be spring soon_, he realised with a start, _both here_ _in Area 11 and in Pendragon_. The flowers in the gardens of the Imperial Villa at Aries would soon be blooming. His throat began feeling unwieldy, as if he had inexplicably tried to swallow a good-sized pebble and got it stuck halfway instead.

"Lelou, she'd… she _used to_ say… something of the sort." He spoke haltingly, lost in thought; not really seeing the General any longer.

It was _her_ he saw instead. His tiny black-haired sister with her purple, purple amethyst eyes. Filled with more passion than the sun, more ferocity than the fiercest tiger, and yet incapable of inflicting physical damage greater than an irate kitten could manage. That absurdity had amused him endlessly.

"We played chess often, in the Capital back in the days before… _before_. Despite her age and her nonsensical ideas, I could never best her. Still, I was… happy. But those days, they didn't… couldn't—"

Clovis ceased abruptly. He had revealed too much, he realised in consternation. He could not simply laugh it off now. Not convincingly at least.

Bartley in turn was uncooperatively silent. He just stood there, seemingly struck dumb.

_Damn fool! Say something! Change the subject! Anything! Speak!_

And still nothing.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, massaging his temple in frustration. It was no use raging silently. The fool would stand there gaping 'til world's end. _Always finish the painting you've begun and all that rot_, he thought resignedly.

And after all, what harm could it cause? He had come to realise that it was not in the General's character to lightly hold his tongue. At least not with regards to royalty. But still…

"You will not speak of this." He warned sharply.

Bartley nodded furiously.

In spite of that, the uneasy feeling that vulnerability created made him hesitant to proceed. He dithered, allowing the silence to stand between them until he could take it no longer.

"She told me that once." Clovis finally said stiffly. "My sister, Lelou. What I just asked of you."

"In a garden very much like this one. One afternoon in spring, we played chess. And she told me that 'the King must lead. Else—'"

He turned away, pained. "Else what, I cannot remember."

"Every person I've asked in the past three weeks could not even guess what it could be. I suspect only two people have ever known the real answer. But I am not going to ask my brother, not about this. And Lelou is not ever going to remind me. Not that she can."

Odd that after so many years Lelou still managed to confound him.

He had awoken that day three weeks ago to the vestigial pangs of a strange half-forgotten dream. At first, he had dismissed it on hand. It was such a _shameful_ dream, after all; his brat sister, seven years his junior, beating him at the ancient and noble game of chess _yet again_. He would have been quite happy to completely forget that feeling of utter humiliation, thank you!

Except it was _not_ a mere dream, he had realised in a tizzy later that day, but a memory. A precious memory of a place and time he could never return to.

And one he could not completely remember.

He owed it to her. To her memory.

He owed it to his maddening, infuriating, vexatious, adorable _dead_ sister. To remember.

Otherwise, how else would one who endures only as a memory expect to continue existing? If those who loved her could not remember her…remember that she had lived, laughed, cried, triumphed, lost… remember that she had loved, and was loved in turn… If none remember that she was _here_… then, why would… why _should_ she have existed in the first place?

Why should _anyone_ have bothered to '_be'_ if their fate was ultimately naught but shadows and dust?

_If I should d— _

He shuddered, refusing to even entertain the idea. The mere thought of it was unbearable.

No. He won't.

_Not me, _Clovis resolved.

And he even had in his possession the very thing to achieve just that. The only question that remained was _how_.

"Your royal sister, my prince?" Bartley finally spoke up, inquiring gently. "Princess _Lelou_?"

"Oh, it's Lucile really." Clovis laughed weakly, grateful for a distraction from his heavy thoughts. "Lelou was the nickname she came up with. It's actually a pretty amusing tale, that. We thought… that is, those of us who were her siblings of _actual import_ thought it both endearing and fitting, so the name more or less stuck. It became what we ever called her. Those of us who liked her and that she liked enough in turn, that is."

"Third Princess Lucile vi Britannia!" Bartley put the pieces together. "The elder of the Two Lost Princesses. Declared dead after—" The General faltered.

"After the Second Pacific War, and the conquest of Area 11, along with her younger sister the Fifth Princess." Clovis finished quietly.

"This land is Lelou's resting place; hers and Nunnally's. She's the reason I'm here, the reason I chose back then to be Viceroy. After everything that had occurred, she _deserves_ to rest peacefully now. They both deserve that much at least."

* * *

Meanwhile, some 30 miles east of the Viceroy's Palace. In Ashford Academy, Area 11's finest educational institution, a certain black-haired girl with purple, purple amethyst eyes would only be too happy to agree whole-heartedly with the Viceroy's sentiment, if she could but hear him.

If Lelou's half-brother were here with her on Ashford's wet green field, and told her even in his most puffed-up, pompous, supercilious manner that he thought she _deserved_ rest, she would have adoringly gushed that it was the most brilliant suggestion she had ever heard him make.

Ever.

And that _yes_, she absolutely agreed with him. In fact, she deserved it right _now_. Just listen to her screaming legs crying out '_now!'_ Peaceful rest and relaxation, that's what she needed. She wouldn't even mind if it was the blissful oblivion of eternal peace on the agenda at this rate.

"P-please. Just… kill me." She begged the pitiless stony-faced woman.

"Three more rounds around the field, Miss Lamperouge." Ms. Hart, Ashford's P.E. instructor ordered, her voice unyielding iron. "And quickly now. You're holding up the rest of the class."

There was a reason why Hart was called 'Hard-nose' among Ashford students, Lelou reflected bitterly. Though, 'Hart-less' could work just as well in _her_ honest opinion.

"You can do it, Lulu! Just three more to go!" Shirley cheered enthusiastically from one of the sinfully tempting benches at the field's shady corner. _She_ had evidently already completed the requisite 7 laps _and_ stretching exercises for the class' warm-up routine.

Despite the activity, Lelou noticed with black resentment that her friend hardly looked worn out. Shirley's long ginger hair even remained neatly tied up, not a single strand out of place. In comparison, Lelou was half a ghost, a thing of horror; her face taut and drawn with exhaustion, her normally lustrous short black hair drenched and dishevelled.

"Come one, Lulu! You're the last one now!"

Lelou was fond of Shirley. She really was. She appreciated her friend's kindness, her confidence in Lelou, her genuine, unconditional friendship. Above all else, Lelou appreciated her gentle amity with Nunnally, and that she honestly did not subscribe to That Man's eat-or-be-eaten philosophy. But really.

_I really -really- don't need this right now Shirley! _

She panted with great effort, feeling just a tad bit hysterical. She reckoned her abused limbs could fall off any moment now.

Damn Rivalz for skipping out on her! If he hadn't left on an 'emergency' errand for Milly, Lelou would not have been caught skiving P.E. as she usually did. She would not have been dragged kicking and screaming to her death. They _both_ could have been gleefully profiting off yet another arrogant, over-confident nobleman, if only her 'wingman' had stuck to the plot.

_It's over! _Lelou groaned despairingly. She could see her end was nigh. Tunnelling vision and all. She could have even sworn she saw Mother, reaching out with a beatific smile to welcome her into the afterlife.

_No! Nunnally!_

She couldn't die! She refused to! Not until her gentle sister opened her eyes to a kind, peaceful world! And she would make it so! So not yet! Not yet!

Holding on to that fervent dream, Lou 'Lelou' Lamperouge drew herself up with a shuddering gasp and soldiered on. She'd make her famous warrior mother, Marianne 'The Flash', proud of her yet!

She blacked out at the start of the 6th lap.

* * *

_13th March 2016 a.t.b. _

_Two days before_

* * *

"Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own."

"Thus spoke the Player King, his words wisdom evergreen, penned from immortal quill of Avon's Eternal Bard." Lelou sighed morosely.

"Would that certain block-headed royal princelings had _listened, _me including. Nothing alters the course of fate; wishing… planning… it doesn't change a thing. Tragedies stay tragedies."

She sighed again.

Ever since the unfortunate incident of the black-out spell five days past, Lelou was in that stage in life she had taken to calling her 'edification period_'_.

It had been a revelation. There were still lessons to be learnt, she had discovered, particularly from the works of Shakespeare. Lessons on how one's fate, destiny and muscle mass percentage were unchangeable. Immutable. Intransigent.

Rivalz had laughingly taken to calling it 'Lelou's existential crisis'. She had pointedly chosen to ignore him. She had not forgotten his treachery that landed her into that death-trap Ashford called a field in the first place.

"That's strange, Lelou." Nina suddenly said uncertainly.

"Hmm? What is?"

"You said 'me _including'. _If only stubborn royals like Hamlet had paid attention to the King Player's message, was what you said, right? But why '_including_' you, Lelou?" Nina softly picked apart, puzzled by her normally very precise friend's choice of words.

Lelou inwardly winced. _Ugh, careless fool! _

She turned a casual, nonchalant gaze to her pigtails-wearing friend and appraised her thoughtfully._ Nina's sharp, can't be too careful from now on. It's the quiet ones. Always the quiet ones. _

But the situation was still containable.

Taking care to seem completely unruffled, she calmly began. "Well— "

"That's because Lulu's a princess, of course!" Shirley exclaimed.

_Impossible! Shirley?! How?!_

"Ashford's very own Princess of Cool!"

_Ah_.

Rivalz snorted. "More like Lelou's a _queen_. Ashford's very own Queen of Drama." He mimed exaggeratedly, arms gesticulating in mock theatrical agony. "_Romeo oh Romeo! Oh cruel fate oh~!_" He cried out in squeaky falsetto.

With the exception of an irate Lelou, they all burst into laughter.

Even Nina joined the two giggling idiots in her own timid fashion, Lelou warily observed out of the corner of her eye. The former issue was apparently forgotten in the wake of the jest. She released a quiet sigh of relief.

Still, if things had not slipped away from her control like it had, she could have handled it _differently_, Lelou thought somewhat crossly. At least in a way that would have been less crushing to her ego.

Lelou wouldn't lie. Well, not to herself, at least. She _did_ feel rather miffed at being made the butt of the joke. And she found it especially irksome that the jest attacked her in such a manner. For goodness sake, she didn't even sound like that!

_Also it's a thing called culture? Not -drama-. Philistines._

"Aww, Lelou's mad at us, guys!" Rivalz ribbed mischievously, noticing her black glower and doubtlessly hoping to get a rise out of her.

"We are surrounded by _foolishness_, but our righteousness shall prevail in the end." She sniffed dismissively, invoking the royal plural. Because she was Queen, apparently. Of _Drama_.

"Aaannd we're all '_girls'_ here too, Rivalz." Shirley pointed out severely, arms crossed in indignation. "I see no guys! Er— except you, Rivalz,"

Lelou snickered. "_Hopefully_ except Rivalz."

"_Ouch. _Jeez, _women_!"

Laughter ensued again. She hid a fond smile.

As they good-naturedly fell back into completing their tasks (read: unpaid manual labour), Lelou deemed it fit to resume her soliloquy. Not only was budgeting the second term spending for the clubs tedious and _boring. _She must admit, she rather enjoyed the theatrics of olden-day plays and poetry_. _

And besides, the coast was clear.

She began reciting in a vaguely mournful air:

"With domineering hand she moves the turning wheel,

Like currents in a treacherous bay swept to and fro:

Her ruthless will has just deposed once fearful kings,

While trustless still, from low she lifts a conquered head;

No cries of misery she hears, no tears she heeds,

But steely hearted laughs at groans her deeds have wrung.

Such is the game she plays—"

"Ohhh?" A deceptively sweet voice sang out from the doorway behind her. "And just _who_ might you be describing, my darling little lamb?"

Lelou felt her hackles rise all of a sudden, the room's temperature having seemingly plummeted. _It's the chill of impending doom, _she thought with an instinctive shudder. Then her fight-or-flight response kicked in and she chose as she would always choose: _fight. _She would _not_ be led to slaughter meekly like a sheep.

She gamely donned her best nonchalant demeanour, and turned a dispassionate gaze to the Devil smiling back innocently at her. _Sprezzatura, Lelou!_

"Hmm? Oh, it's Boethius' Lady Fortune." Lelou replied with a practiced lazy smile. "Not quite Britannian, true, but a seminal work nonetheless. Whoever did _you_ think it was?" She asked guilelessly.

No sooner than she had delivered her rejoinder, Lelou found her personal space summarily invaded.

"Are you still not done sulking, Lelou?" Milly leered down at her. "Brooding darkly about fate and destiny and your underwhelming physical prowess _was_ cute the first day. But you've been neglecting all your Very Important Student Council Business since!"

Milly wagged a finger at her errant Vice President cum unpaid minion. "You've got a do-or-die mission to complete, Lelou! If you falter and fail, the entire budget until July will come crashing down! Who _else_ but you can save us all? _Rivalz_?!" She cried out her rhetorical question in full melodrama.

_Pfft, and they crowned -me- Ashford's Drama Queen?_

"_Oi!_" The sole male member of the Student Council objected indignantly.

"Perhaps you _should_ give him a chance, Milly. Rivalz has always wanted to be a White Knight. Right, buddy?" Lelou replied smoothly. _Sorry Rivalz_.

Her buddy in question gulped with trepidation.

"And _I _have always wanted to be a witch!" Milly declared. "A White Witch, of course, like the fairy godmothers in the tales, doing good and making wishes come true. But I can make an exception for you, my wayward underling! Just you wait and see. The big game I know you and Rivalz are planning this Wednesday will fall through! You'll lose _soooo_ badly your pockets will burn from the speed that your money's leaving you!"

Her manic friend struck up a dramatic pose. "This is my magic curse, Lelou! Listen and tremble in despair!" She cleared her throat deliberately and whispered sinisterly. "Beware! Beware the eyes of March! Bewaaaare~!"

"'She is a dreamer. Let us leave her. Pass!'" Lelou quoted glibly. "And it's the '_ides' _of March, Milly. Not _eyes._" She smirked at her peeved friend.

"That's it, Lelou!" Milly growled and pointed imperiously at her mutinous subordinate. "President's Orders! No more snarking! No more brooding! And no more Shakespearating!"

Lelou raised an eyebrow archly. "Shakespearating?" She questioned disdainfully.

Milly grinned evilly and deployed her trump card. "If you can't stop because of your rebellious teenage hormones, Lelou, I'll be happy to assist! I've just perfected my Ultimate Cheering Magic Spell Mark II. You know, _that_ one. Maybe I should give it a trial-run~"

She promptly folded in the face of Milly Ashford's terrifying ace.

With no small amount of fear, Lelou shakily held up her hands in surrender. "Er— no need for that, Madam President!" Hastily rearranging her face into a strained grin, she assured her wickedly grinning triumphant friend. "See, I'm smiling! I'm done brooding! I repent my snarking! Shakespeare can go shake a spear! It's not the hormones! Truly!"

"Too late~!" Milly laughed and pounced twitching fingers first. "_Milly's Miraculourous Divinivent-tack_!"

Lelou would in the future forever maintain that she went through her _second_ Existential Crisis during those hellish four minutes.

* * *

_14th March 2016 a.t.b._

_One day before_

* * *

_"…a video of the terrorist bombing on the South Gate port of the Nagasaki Settlement. While no lives were lost in this horrible incident, 5 Britannian citizens have been hospitalised for third-degree burns with 20 others sustaining minor injuries. Further, it is also estimated that the attack destroyed £21.4 million worth in port infrastructure and equipment. The inflammatory video released a month ago by the terrorist organisation calling itself the 'Japan Liberation Front' inciting the Elevens to—"_

Lelou shut off the TV and returned to the bank records piled carelessly on the lounge table. The accounts she had opened under an assortment of false names were flourishing. _Still not quite there yet though_, she judged critically, perusing through each and calculating the numbers mentally.

"Did you find the news unpleasant, sister?" A sweet voice called out from the corridor. Her dearest sister Nunnally smiled as Sayoko wheeled her into the lounge they used as a living room.

"The news? No, it's just a bit distracting is all." She smiled at their ever-pleasant maid. "Thank you, Sayoko. You can call it a day, I'll take it from here."

Sayoko bowed deeply in the Japanese fashion, a normally indiscreet action in Britannian society. That their maid would even dare commit such a faux pas stemmed from an incident where Lelou (with Nunnally's whole-hearted agreement) had insisted that she never be ashamed to honour the culture of her people before them. Sayoko, needless to say, had eagerly complied.

"Thank you, Miss Lou, Miss Nunnally. A pleasant evening to you both."

"And to you, Sayoko." Nunnally chimed.

After Sayoko's departure, she knelt by Nunnally's wheelchair and took her hands warmly into her own. Lelou wore a tender smile upon her face that her sister may not be able see but could, in her adamant belief, nonetheless _feel_.

"How was your day, Nunnally? I'm sorry for not making it to dinner. I had to finish the last of the second term budgeting just now. President's orders."

Her sister laughed, the sound of her laughter like daintily chiming silver bells. "Milly's still bossing you around, sister?" She teased playfully.

Lelou made a sour face at that, and then hoped against hope that Nunnally hadn't managed to _feel_ it.

"Milly Ashford will be Milly Ashford." She said finally in as neutral a tone as she could manage.

Lelou's and Milly's friendship was as complex as it was long-standing. They had first met when she and Nunnally were still princesses in Pendragon and their mother, Marianne, still lived.

The Ashfords were the vi Britannia's oldest and most steadfast allies. But Lelou had been wary of even them after her mother's death. _Mother's assassination had ruined them after all_, she had reasoned then. It took Reuben's unfaltering kindness and Milly's unabashed honesty over the years to straighten her out in that regard.

"Well, my day wasn't the best, honestly." Nunnally confessed. "I took an afternoon nap and woke up crying. It was such a horrid dream."

She patted her sister's hand sympathetically. "It was just a nightmare, Nunnally, it's not real. It can't hurt you here, I won't let it." Lelou said comfortingly.

But rather than respond, Nunnally remained oddly quiet. _The dream must have really shook her_, Lelou thought with concerned alarm.

"Shirley told me. That you were going gambling with Rivalz tomorrow." She said finally.

_Shirley!_

Biting down her extreme annoyance, she responded lightly. "There is nothing to be worried about, Nunnally. I wager with chess, and you know that no one can beat your big sister at that game."

"It's not about that! What if you get caught? Underaged gambling is _illegal_!"

"I won't." Lelou said firmly. "I have an understanding with the owner. He keeps things quiet for me. And as for the people I beat, they aren't in a hurry to admit that a child bested them." She asked tightly. "Now, did you have your dream before or _after_ Shirley saw fit to inform you of that?"

Ever since Milly had opened her big mouth yesterday, Shirley had been on her case pleading with her to 'clean up her act'. She had eventually ended by begging her not to go tomorrow. Lelou was unmoved, and had flatly told her to not get involved in her business.

_If Shirley thinks she can upset Nunnally just so that things go -her- way, she'd best think again!_

"I know what you're thinking, sister, and _no_, it's not Shirley's fault." Nunnally said severely. "I had the dream _before_ she told me what you were planning. What she said just made it all the more real…"

She squeezed her sister's hand to let her know she was still listening.

"I dreamt you had gone away. You were walking away from me. I tried to run after you… I could always run and see in my dreams… but when you walked away from me, I suddenly couldn't feel my legs. And the further you walked from me, the more it started getting darker and darker."

Nunnally trembled at the memory. "I was so scared. I _still_ am so very scared." She whispered. "Please. Please don't go tomorrow. For me?"

Lelou fell into a conflicted silence. She _did_ have a good amount of money squirrelled away in her accounts but it wasn't enough; not even _close_ to enough. She couldn't yet afford to antagonise Peter Grey at this point by backing out. Not on a mere whim, not because her sister had a scary _dream_.

"Why… why aren't you saying anything?" Her sister's voice quavered. "Why do you even _need_ to go? Is it about the money? Do we not have enough money?"

"It's not about the money, Nunnally. I just…I have things that I need to do." She ended with a tone of finality.

She stood up, pulling away from her sister. Nunnally sightlessly made to grab her hand but Lelou would have none of that. She didn't trust herself not to blab her secrets if her sister, the one person she would not deceive, still clung to her.

"You're being selfish," her sister said quietly.

"Nunnally?"

"You heard me! You're being selfish and reckless a-and… _and_ stupid!" She shouted defiantly, her slight body shaking with suppressed fury.

Lelou's mouth twisted. _Selfish?!_ she furiously repeated the accusation. _Me, selfish?! When everything… everything I've done was for—_

She hissed in anger. "If you think just for one moment that I'm doing this for _myself_, then you are very very mistaken."

"Then tell me! For _whom_ are you doing this… whatever you're even doing?" Nunnally challenged hotly.

_For you. Everything I do, I do for you._

But Lelou didn't say it. She couldn't.

It would not do after all to tell one's sister that you were planning rebellion, war and patricide on her behalf. Not if that sister was as gentle and peaceful as Nunnally.

Instead she grasped the handles of her sister's wheelchair and briskly made for her sister's bedroom. "Where are we going?" Nunnally demanded in alarm.

"We are going to your room, you are going to bed, and we shall not be speaking of this again." She replied in a tone that would brook no opposition. She didn't dare look at Nunnally's face then for fear it may break her.

"You're a tyrant."

"Guilty."

Nunnally held her tongue obstinately throughout the whole routine. As Lelou brushed her sullen sister's long light brown curls, she mirrored Nunnally's pointed silence, unwilling to be the first to give way. _Two can play at the cold shoulder treatment game, little sister_, she mulishly thought.

Still, the continuing tenseness that was usually so foreign to their nighttime routine gradually filled her with unease. A quick glance at the mirror revealed that Nunnally remained surly, to her dismay. _Do not given in!_ she howled at her weak-willed self. She reminded herself sternly that she did not raise a spoiled brat nor will she encourage such wilful behaviour in her sister. However by the end of it, her limbs had gone stiff as a board as she mechanically helped a stubbornly reticent Nunnally change into her nightgown and tuck her into her linen coverlets.

Still pouting, her sister grasped the covers and sulkily buried herself beneath them.

_I give up._

She sighed. "Nunnally."

"Go away." Her recalcitrant sister mumbled from under the covers. "That's what you '_need_ to do' after all."

Lelou sat at the edge of the bed and exhaled tiredly. "Nunnally, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you. _Really_, I'm not. It might be a bit of a shock to hear this, but I've actually been to over a dozen games already. It's reckless, yes, but I know what I'm doing. I've come back from them each and every time, haven't I?"

"This time's _different_. I know it is!"

"And even if it _is_ different, would it change anything?" She placed her hand tenderly over her sister's blanketed form. "Nunnally, even if all of Britannia and all its armies stood between us; even if we be separated by mountains, seas and valleys; even then, I'll still come back to you, always. I promise."

Nunnally was silent at first. Then, her sister's hand slowly peeked out from the covers, little finger held out aloft. "Promise me _properly,_" the muffled demand came from underneath the coverlets.

With a wordless grin at that cute little display, Lelou entwined their fingers together. Her sister emerged then from her makeshift linen fortress, her normally sweet-natured face impassive and inscrutable.

"I promise that I'll always come back to you, Nunnally." She echoed her vow solemnly.

Nunnally nodded slowly and then tightened her finger's hold. "_Yubikiri genman, uso tsuitara hari senbon nomasu._" She sang in Japanese, singing the old promise song Suzaku had taught them all those years back.

"There!" She crowed triumphantly. "You can't take back those words now, sister. You've got to keep your promise, or—"

"Or I'll have to swallow a thousand needles. Now that's a scary prospect!" Lelou laughed fondly.

Nunnally tossed her hair loftily. "Well, were you lying, sister?"

"To you?" She smiled a gentle, adoring smile. "Never."

* * *

It was later, after Nunnally had fallen asleep, that saw Lelou make her way back down to the lounge. She flounced over to the messy lounge table with a foolish grin, the afterglow of sisterly affection still gladdening her heart. Looking askance at her pile of bank records, she lazily decided that she'd had enough of crunching numbers for the night.

Plopping herself on the sofa instead in a decidedly inelegant move, she nearly ripped her carelessly discarded woebegone copy of _Hamlet _in two.

Her light mood abruptly plummeted as she held the book up appraisingly, flipping it open to the one line that had resonated with her since the day Britannia destroyed the peace she and Nunnally had gained in Japan.

_'The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, That ever I was born to set it right!'_

Her thoughts turned bleaker, darker.

She thought of Hamlet and herself. Thought of the burden they both bore, the things they had to do; whatever it took, whatever the price. She thought of the injustice life had dealt her sister and herself. And how back then as a child of ten she had wished.

Wished for justice; wished for answers; wished for kind eyes, kind words and a safe place; wished for a saviour; wished for her mother to return from the dead, for her sister to walk and to see and to smile freely.

Wished for Britannia's (That Man's) absolute and utter destruction.

_But no matter how I wished; no matter my grand plans and grand dreams; the world just didn't change. _

_Fate shrugged and destiny didn't give a shit. Not for a screaming, whining, powerless child._

But she wouldn't stay a child forever. Nor will she be content to remain powerless. There were no fairy godmothers to make her wishes come true, no magic spells to grant her absolution, no Devil to sell her soul to. She was not a skilled warrior like her mother or Cornelia or even her childhood friend Suzaku. She was not a man. Not like her brothers, not like That Man. She did not have the privileges a man had; not their agency, not the unconscious respect people afforded them, heck! not even the additional muscle mass they had.

But she was Lucile vi Britannia, and she had her own gifts. Children grew, and children learn. And this one lesson above all had made itself self-evident throughout the years.

It was not her that was wrong; it was the world.

So she will change it. Change all that was wrong with this unjust, indifferent world. Obliterate Britannia.

To do that, the power she will need and the means to see it through… she'll obtain it.

Lelou shut the book sharply, smiling a cold savage smile.

_One successful game at a time._

* * *

_15th March 2016 a.t.b._

_The day of_

* * *

_Beware the Ides of March_, the soothsayer had warned.

_Do not go to the Senate_, Calpurnia had pleaded.

Letters came. Dire omens foreboded disaster.

But still Caesar went forth. Because he was Caesar.

Because he was _fucking_ Caesar, Lelou thought furiously.

"Would you like a glass, Lelouch? There is no finer drink in the entire Area I've been told." Her half-brother smiled charmingly at her. "And as loath as I am to agree with an up-jumped trader like Grey, I must alas most grudgingly concur."

She forcefully stilled her subtly trembling hands by gripping the side of her trousers. Breathing, she found was a struggle, her wrung-out nerves exacerbating the constrictive suffocating feeling around her chest caused by her breast binds. Nonetheless, she maintained the portrayal of her facade to a T.

Commoner boy Lelouch Lamperouge, talented at chess and charming as any gentleman. But young and inexperienced, and oh-so-dazzled by the Viceroy's sudden and unexpected interest in him. She could play the role of commoner boy Lelouch. She _must_.

"Thank you, your highness, but I must decline." She said politely, carefully averting her eyes from her still-oblivious brother sitting but two feet away from her.

_Let him believe I am a shy young schoolboy. Let him believe that being in the presence of royalty overwhelms me. Let him believe that I am who I say I am and no more._

She smiled bashfully and continued spewing the revolting flattery expected of her role. "I am unworthy of such an honour, my prince."_ Ugh._

Clovis laughed merrily. "You have very pleasing manners, young man. Modest as becomes a subject in the presence of his betters, but a man must needs be bold to prosper! _Fortuna Audaces Iuvat_, as the old saying goes. Now…" There was a sound of clicking fingers, and a glass swiftly appeared before her, the attendant filling it with a dark golden liquid.

"Have a drink. Your prince insists."

She looked at her glass of liquid inebriation apprehensively. _This is bad_, she panicked, _really bad. I need all my wits about me if I am to fool my brother._

She smiled faintly, her eyes still downcast. "Well, if my prince insists, then how can I refuse? But I must confess the truth, your highness." She looked at her brother then almost embarrassedly.

_Don't look into his eyes, Lelou! Look at his mouth! Or his nose!_

"In truth I haven't cultivated much of a stomach for drinking yet, and I fear that I would surely shame myself before you. I should quite simply _die_ of embarrassment if I did."

"Is that so now?" Clovis laughed in amusement. "Ah, too be young and still unaccustomed to the ways of the world." He smiled kindly. "I shan't be too harsh on you then, lad."

He held up a finger. "One glass."

"Yes, your highness." _I can do one glass._

She raised the glass first in a silent salute to her host, and brought it close to her face. Aromas of delicate flowers, rich fruits and intense spices assailed her nostrils. The dark amber liquid swirled almost lazily in her glass, sultrily beckoning her to abandon all sense. A single sip left flavours of lychee, Cuban cigars, cinnamon and ginger lingering on her tongue and a delicious warmth radiating from her gullet.

"Well?"

"It is magnificent, your highness." She answered honestly.

He chuckled mirthfully. "It is, is it not?"

He folded his hands gracefully on top of the table and leaned forward, his blue eyes examining her searchingly. Lelou bit back the instinctive urge to shrink into her chair. She could swear she _felt_ the intensity of his gaze as his eyes sweepingly appraised her.

"You have purple eyes." He said finally, leaning back into his chair.

She blinked.

_I have purple eyes?_ Lelou thought incredulously. _That is what he took away from that exceptional inspection? Purple eyes?_

Perhaps she still had a chance. A snowball's chance in hell, true. But, hell _can_ be cold and frigid once in awhile after all. Why not now? Especially since… _Purple eyes? _she thought disgustedly. _You couldn't have done better than that, brother?_

"My best feature, my mother always tells me." She smiled disarmingly. "It is a typically Britannian trait though, I believe."

He laughed. "You make it sound so common! It is not, I assure you. True, only Britannians seem to carry that gene, but it is still rare even among us." Her brother smile at her. "A rare beauty."

She recoiled inwardly. _Is he hitting on me?!_

"I am honoured that you think so, my prince." Her reply came meekly, her cheeks flushing in embarrassed pleasure (_indignation_).

"Now, does your mother know of your…activities, young man?" Clovis asked faintly reproving.

_No, your highness. My mother would not know because she is dead, your highness. Vermin like you and our poisonous, treacherous 'family' had her murdered, your highness. The same way I will deal with the lot of you one day, your highness. Just you wait for it._

Lelou brought her hand to her head, and ran it through her hair in a nervous gesture.

"She is blissfully ignorant of her only son's dissolute lifestyle actually." She confessed with just the teensiest amount of shame, and then launched straight into commoner boy Lelouch Lamperouge's commoner backstory.

"Mum raised me single-handedly after my dad passed away five years ago. She works two jobs now to keep us both fed and clothed. I try to do what I can to chip in, but you only brings in so much working as a waiter or bartender."_ Not that you could even comprehend that, my princely brother._ "When I heard that people win money at chess, I thought to myself, 'why not?'" She shrugged in self-deprecation. "I _am_ pretty good at the game. Since Mum lets me be independent as long as I'm back before curfew, which is…" She glanced at her wristwatch and paled. "…um, it's actually in half an hour's time."

She turned pleading eyes to her brother. "I am dreadfully sorry, your highness. I've completely lost track of the time!" Her eyes darted nervously. "I am completely honoured, of course, that you would take your time to talk to me—of all the fine people here! But I really…really need to…" She trailed off, looking chagrined.

_Check._

"I completely understand, young Lelouch." Clovis told her sympathetically. "I will only keep you here for but a moment longer. In truth, there is something pressing I need to speak to you about."

_Oh? _

"I am at your disposal, my prince."

He rested his chin on his hand, smiling indulgently. "I noticed that game just now. With the Viscount Echlin? It was a stunning victory for you, lad." He congratulated lightly.

His eyes shone then with an almost anticipatory gleam. "But I noticed something rather peculiar. That move you made, with your king piece, what exactly was that?"

_And what exactly is this, brother? Chess club strategy meeting?_

"A mere feint, your highness." She responded sheepishly. "I didn't exactly mean anything with it."

The sheer disappointment on Clovis' face at her words took her completely by surprise. "But there _must _be something to it, right? Some real value in that move? Right?" He nearly begged her, his eyes wild and dilated.

She hesitated to answer. On one hand, she could tell him and he would use that knowledge in whatever nefarious affair he was up to; or she could withhold her answer, feign ignorance and risk his wrath.

_The former then_, she chose resignedly_, after all, what harm can Clovis cause with a little chess knowledge? Surely no more than he and Britannia had already done to Japan and the Japanese._

"There is no real value in leading with the king piece in chess." She began carefully. "No chess value, that is. First, it goes against the principle priority of ensuring the king's safety that is in turn the opponent's primary objective to jeopardise. And second, the king piece is nothing more than a glorified pawn; it isn't powerful like the queen, it isn't versatile like the bishop or the rook, and it isn't unpredictable like the knight."

Lelou drew a breath and continued, her raptly listening brother hanging on to her every word. "But chess is more than simply a game on the board. It's a game between two people." _And two armies one day, if I get my way_. "In the first half of the game, I allowed Lord Hamish to believe that he had the upper hand even as I began setting up his downfall. I made a few seemingly illogical moves here and there, and he ate up the whole charade from the palm of my hand."

She smiled coolly and held a palm outstretched. "And when I taunted him with my king, that only cemented the victory in his mind. Still, Lord Hamish is a person. And there would always be a nagging sense of doubt at the back of his mind asking 'why'. Why move in such a suicidal manner? the voice would ask uncertainly. A voice at the back of his mind that would grow louder and louder as his pieces and plans started falling apart. At which point he would become utterly convinced." She abruptly curled her fingers into a fist. "That moving the king _must_ have been some mysterious ultimate move."

She let that sink into him.

Eventually her brother smiled wonderingly. "So you did tell me true. It really _was_ a feint, after all."

"Exactly."

Clovis leaned into his chair and burst into peals of genuine laughter, the kind where the eyes crinkled up at the edges and too much teeth were shown. Lelou stared, amazed that her image-conscious brother would show such an inelegant sight to a relative stranger.

He sobered after a while, as if realising something. _His loss of dignity perhaps_, she sniped uncharitably.

Oddly enough, her brother started staring blankly into space. "But that doesn't answer anything in the end." He muttered morosely to himself.

Lelou was in turn beginning to feel a little out of her depth with her brother's strange mood-swings. Not to mention… _if I really were under curfew, Clovis, mother would have been boxing my ears by now_, she thought snippily.

_Honestly, what part of 'at the stroke of midnight' do you not get from my little Cinderella story?_

She decided to act decisively now while his guard was down. "My prince…forgive me. Truly. But well…it's just that, the _time_…" She trailed off looking decidedly forlorn.

Her brother finally looked her way, his expression inexplicably worn and tired. "Yes… yes, indeed. Forgive me, Lelouch. You answered my question perfectly, 'tis true. You told me why you led with the king, and it truly was a most fascinating insight. But…" He sighed.

_But…?! _

If she could, Lelou would have leapt from her seat and throttled her wishy-washy brother.

_Out with it!_ she wanted to scream.

"Yes?" She inquired evenly instead.

Clovis looked at her plaintively. "Why must the King lead?"

Scratch the former idea. She wanted to leap from her seat, throttle him, and then have him hung, quartered and _drawn_.

"Perhaps, my prince, that is a question for the philosophers?" She said pleasantly. "That sounded very much like a discussion of the social contract theory."

Her brother disagreed vehemently. "No, no! In chess! Why must the King lead in _chess_?"

"And what is wrong with interpreting chess along the lines of real-world philosophies?" She countered coolly. "Chess is after all the struggle of life writ small. Why should not _all_ the ingredients of life—whether they be human nature like with Lord Hamish or ideas like 'why the king must lead'—be present when one plays a game of life's struggle?"

She remarked wryly. "Even makes chess a more lively affair, in my opinion. Now…" She stood up and bowed reverently "I'm afraid I _really_ must go, your highness. I hope I was of service to you."

She turned to leave, a grin fighting to break free from her control.

"Wait!" Clovis called out, his voice oddly panicked.

_Wait? WAIT?!_

"You haven't told me yet! Why must the King lead?"

Lelou turned and faced him, her strained half-smile almost sardonic as she told him. "Well, if he doesn't lead then how can his subordinates follow?"

She nodded perfunctorily at her stunned brother and beat a brisk, hasty retreat.

* * *

_April 2010 a.t.b._

_Six years before_

* * *

He remained sceptical. "And that little stunt with the king piece?"

Her eyes brightened. Purple, purple amethyst eyes. "It's something big brother Schneizel said the other day that inspired that move." She confided to her suddenly unamused brother.

Clovis grimaced inwardly. It was always like this. It always came down to 'oooh-big-brother-Schneizel-said-this' and 'big-brother-Schneizel-said-that'. He seethed resentfully. Why couldn't she be impressed with _him_ for a change?

"He said…" The child continued, blithely oblivious to his unspoken bitterness. "That the king must always lead, else how can he expect his subordinates to follow?"

Lelou grinned. "But then I told him, it should really be 'else how can _she_ expect _her_ subordinates to follow, right?'" She laughed gaily at her own ten-year-old cleverness. "Tell me that isn't the wittiest thing you've heard all day!"

* * *

_15th March 2016 a.t.b_

_The day of_

* * *

Clovis sat rooted to his seat in bewilderment, his eyes staring holes into the marble flooring of the club in disbelief.

_That time… she said… -he- said… but that boy…that 'Lelouch Lamperouge'… could it be? But then…that would mean she's…_

He looked up wildly, realising something with a start. _He's gone! -She's- gone!_

His breaths came in short, shallow gasps of agitation as he approached an emotion close to hysteria.

He cannot lose her again. He just _cannot_.

"G-guards…" He whispered breathlessly. "Guards." He tried again, ineffectually wheezing out his call.

_Calm yourself, Clovis!_

He drew deep breaths in an effort to steady his wildly pounding heart.

"Guards!" He finally screamed, his Royal Guard swarming in at their master's call.

"That boy. Lelouch Lamperouge. I want him brought to me." He stood up trembling as he feverishly commanded his loyal men.

"Alive and unharmed."

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. Dying Halcyon Days

A/N: I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, favourited and story alerted. It was thrilling to see that my weird idea of exploring Lelouch as a girl and seeing how that changes relationship dynamics could be well-received. Haha especially with all the time flip-flopping in the first chapter and literary references (I regret nothing! ^-^) That said, this chapter and the ones to follow will have light incestuous subtext (also regret nothing). Consider yourself warned.

* * *

Chapter 2 : Dying Halcyon Days

* * *

Lelou marched briskly through the dim corridors, through indolent clouds of smoke that scattered in the wake of her passage. She weaved through drunken sots who called themselves noble. She walked past gaggles of sultry-eyed painted women cooing beckoningly at the 'handsome young man'. Cigar smoke, designer perfume and sweat swirled in here into a cloying, musky mix. She found it hard to breathe.

_I cannot look like I'm fleeing._

The very last thing she needed now was to draw attention and suspicion her way, especially in this place where eyes were always watching, always seeing_._ Bright gleaming eyes that would find her, expose her. Laugh gleefully, _you have been seen. _Strip her of all her masks, her lies and disguises, and send her back to that table. Back to a Clovis who finally _sees_.

Lelou shuddered slightly.

She needed to _leave_, and now. She could not stay here a moment longer.

Rivalz was waiting for her near the door. Though clad in a suit just like her, her friend had not been allowed to enter the premises and was instead made to wait near the foyer with the rest of the chauffeurs. She had nearly raised hell for that slight to her friend, but he had only laughed it off and insisted she went ahead, cheerily wishing her luck.

His face lit up when he saw her and he began bouncing fairly with glee. "_Lelouch_, my '_man'_. Heard you landed a meeting with a _prince_." He grinned and whispered near her ear. "Just wait 'til the rest of the Student Council hears about this. Shirley will go nuts!"

She hissed urgently. "Not here, Rivalz! And we need to leave. Quickly!"

Rivalz sobered at her tone. "Why? What happened?" He asked worriedly. "You didn't make him mad, did you?"

She impatiently grabbed the lapels of his cheap cotton suit and marched him out the door. As they emerged to the world outside, the balmy evening breeze hit her face like a punch of reality. She gasped as a drowning man breaking into the blessed surface would, greedily sucking in the free air with its comforting familiar scent of warm wet asphalt. Her heart pounded wildly as what had happened began to fully dawn on her.

She had fooled her brother! She had looked him in the eye and lied perfectly through her teeth! She had triumphed!

_And even so… I lost_, she realised numbly.

_He has seen me._

This was it; this was the end of the line. It did not matter now even if Clovis never put the pieces together. She and Nunnally cannot stay in the Tokyo Settlement any longer. The risk was too high.

Her brother had _seen_ her.

The streetlights flickered to life then as if to taunt her further. _We see you_, the harsh revealing lights jeered down at her. _You have been_ _seen._

She shakily climbed into the sidecar putting her helmet on, her hands trembling with high-strung nerves. They needed to get away, and soon. _No time, we have no more time to lose! _she fretted agitatedly_. _She hurriedly reached for the phone in her pocket to text Reuben the code. The one they had decided on should there ever come a time when she and her sister needed to disappear.

_'Checkmate', _she sent hoping desperately that he had his phone on hand.

The phone buzzed back almost immediately.

_'Castling',_ it read to her extreme relief.

As Rivalz sped them off quickly, she stared back at the receding club, at its gleaming ebony doors carved with the goddesses Juno, Minerva and Venus. Any moment now would see a swarm of soldiers come bursting out of those black doors, she nervously predicted. Any moment now, a fleet of armoured cars would rapidly chase them down. Any moment now…

Nothing.

Grey's faded out of view with not a pursuer in sight. No one was chasing them, Lelou thought in disbelief. She had done it. Delighted laughter threatened to bubble up from her stomach to her mouth. They got away. They actually got away!

She collapsed into her seat, boneless with relief. Smiling tiredly, she slipped a hand through her helmet to massage her aching temple. _I think I've just about had my fill of excitement for the year now_, Lelou mused, chuckling ruefully.

"Looks like the coast is clear!" Rivalz shouted, the rushing wind muffling his voice.

"It would seem so!"

Rivalz whooped with glee, exclaiming that he was evidently the best getaway driver in the Area to her amusement. Lelou _did_ actually privately agreed with him in her sheer gratitude and relief, though she would never be caught telling it to his face. She shuddered to imagine the future jibes to her ego _that_ would result in.

The wind was billowing through her suit jacket as the steady roar of the motorbike's engine sent her mind roaming. Lelou idly wondered where Reuben would put Nunnally and her up at after this. It would most likely be somewhere in Kyūshū, she mused. Either in that villa near Shimabara or in the townhouse at Fukuoka, though nothing was certain yet. He could even be sending them to Hokkaidō, for all she knew.

Nothing was certain…

A shocking jolt ran through her spine and she shot up in her seat.

_Nothing is certain,_ Lelou repeated the thought.

_Anything can happen. _

Like when she thought that her lineage had meant that she and Nunnally and Mother were safe, and everything went to hell.

Or like when she thought that Britannia would leave Japan alone, and everything went to hell.

Or like when she thought her past would never catch up to her, and everything went to…

Yes, anything can happen.

Just because her brother had seemed oblivious, did not mean that he did not eventually realise it after she had left. Likewise, just because she could not see her pursuers, did not mean they were not pursuing her even now. And here she was being a complacent fool. Thinking like a grateful, hopeful utter _simpleton_.

Lelou gripped the edges of the side car agitatedly as she choked down the urge to unleash a blistering litany of oaths.

_We have no time for that! Think! Plan! _

If Clovis remained oblivious, then all would be well. She and Nunnally may never return to Tokyo again after this, but it did not mean that their friends could not visit them. And most importantly, they would stay anonymous and _free._

But if Clovis somehow… _somehow_ realised who 'Lelouch Lamperouge' was, what then?

It was horrifyingly simple. He would track her down through the people he knew she associated with. First Grey, and from that slippery treacherous bastard on, to Rivalz and to the Ashfords. Even if she and her sister managed to escape tonight, her brother would find them in a matter of days. If Clovis _somehow_ figured it all out, then Lelou was doomed the moment she sat down at that table.

But Nunnally and the Ashfords did not have to be.

_It can still go either way, but for now, it's better to presume the worst case scenario_, Lelou decided grimly.

"Rivalz, take a left turn at that junction there!" She shouted over the wind.

"But that takes us to the western precinct! Ashford's is on the east side!" He shouted back.

"Exactly!"

"Alright!" He yelled and swerved left sharply, the friction from their abrupt change in direction sending the tyres shrieking in protest. In one horrifying moment, the side car she rode in _lifted_ off the ground from the sheer momentum of the turn. She was actually flying in the air, Lelou observed in bemused terror.

And then the car came crashing back down to the road, the impact of it sending tremors down her spine even as she clung on wild-eyed for dear life. Still speeding them along, Rivalz swore colourfully at the abuse his beloved motorbike had taken.

Somehow the thought that they could have _died_ had never occurred to him, Lelou noted dazedly.

She burst into fits of choked laughter there and then, the utter seriousness of the situation notwithstanding. Adrenaline rushes and near-death experiences have always made Lelou slightly strange. And with Rivalz at the helm, these spells occurred alarmingly frequent.

"I hope that insult or whatever you did to the prince was _worth_ it!" Her friend yelled at her over the rushing wind, his voice incredibly miffed.

"Send me the bill!" She shouted in turn, a wild exhilarated grin on her face.

"Will do!"

They roared up along the interchange towards the shopping district of New Shibuya, Rivalz skilfully manoeuvring them through traffic and onto the freeway. The cool wind whipped against her neck as she gazed mesmerised at the glimmering lights of the Settlement fleeting by against the backdrop of the darkening sky. And she realised then with a sharp pang of loss, that _this was the last time_.

This was Rivalz and Lelou's last adventure; their last daring escape. She turned to look at her friend, a strange grief quivering in her breast. But he had no time to return her look, fully focused on the ever-winding road as he was, oblivious to her melancholy.

Lelou smiled bitterly. She should have cherished their time together better; cherished _her friend_ better.

And now there was no more _time_.

New Shibuya soon drew up in view, bright and raucous. The shopping haven at first sight was a chaotic jumble of flashing digital billboards, a mad colourful riot of flickering lights. Soon they were riding past fashion stores, niche interest stores, restaurants and cafes, a wild cacophony of counterculture music blasting from everywhere at once. A veritable army of pedestrians teemed the smooth grey stone sidewalks in this place, its streets a roiling sea of constant flux.

Hopefully, her task here in New Shibuya would only be a temporary measure. Depending on whether or not the heavens were on her side tonight, she may be allowed the chance to escape with her sister. Though, Lelou cynically wondered when the heavens had _ever_ favoured her, especially today.

No matter.

She would not flinch from whatever uncertain future Lady Fortune had in store for her as long as she bought Nunnally a chance to escape; as long as she ensured that if not them both, then her sister at least would escape absolutely. That was the _only _thing that mattered in the end.

The stakes have been set, the wager chance, and now she must _play_.

"Rivalz, drop me off at the mall on Omotesandō." Lelou told her friend with quiet resolve.

"You think we still haven't lost them?" Rivalz asked her seriously.

"I don't know." She admitted. "But we have to be careful."

He nodded grimly. "Right-o."

Omotesandō avenue was a fancy, trendy street in New Shibuya popular with the Britannian youth of Area 11. Originally the frontal approach to a shrine dedicated to a deified Kururugi, the Japanese before the invasion had the street gorgeously lined with zelkova trees, evoking a stately, majestic feeling. After the war, the trees had remained immaculate. The shrine on the other hand had since been torn down, a shiny new mall built over the wreckage of its remains.

She had always hated Omotesandō Mall.

"Rivalz." Lelou called out as they rode along the tree-lined avenue. "After you drop me off, don't go back to the Academy just yet. Park the motorbike here for the night and hang out at that cafe Milly dragged us to for Shirley's fifteenth birthday."

He shuddered. "The weird one with the guy waiters in frilly short dresses? Must I?" He whined plaintively.

"_Yes_." She replied, perhaps more sharply than she had intended. "Okay okay." He grumbled.

She continued. "Wait at least three hours before you take the bus back to Ashford. And if anyone asks you about me or Lelouch, you tell them exactly where you dropped me off. You tell them the truth, you hear me?"

"But I thought the whole idea was to lose them!"

"Don't worry." She smiled forcedly. "I have a plan."

"If you say so." He said dubiously.

The ride soon came to an end as Rivalz rode the motorbike up to the front entrance of the mall. Omotesandō Mall was one of the higher-end shopping centres in New Shibuya, and so to soothe the sensitivities of the mall's snootier patrons, twice as many surveillance cameras had been set up to keep watch from the corners and the crevices. Cameras that watch them even now, Lelou noted. _You have been seen_, they cackled whirring to and fro industriously. _You have been seen._

_That's the plan_, she thought.

If the heavens were _not _on her side tonight; if Clovis makes the connection, those all-seeing eyes would spell her doom. But Nunnally and the Ashfords would be safe, at least.

"Thank you, Rivalz." She told him quietly as she climbed out of the side car.

He grinned carelessly. "Don't mention it, Lelou. What are friends for, right?"

"Right." She said with a sad smile. "You know, Rivalz, I had a lot of fun today. Even when you nearly killed us both, it was… a lot of fun. I… I just wanted to say, that I'm happy we became friends. And I'm happy that we _are_ friends. And well, thank you. For everything."

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Rivalz flapped his arms wildly in awkward embarrassment. "Guy-reminder here! Emotional capacity of a teaspoon, remember?"

_He's impossible_. "Ah that's right. I nearly forgot about that." Lelou replied casually, trying her best not to grin.

"Forgot about the teaspoon thing or that I'm a guy?" He asked her suspiciously.

She smiled enigmatically and declined to answer.

* * *

The call rang twice before a crisp voice answered her. "_Reuben Ashford speaking. Who is this?_"

"Reuben, it's me. I'm on a payphone." Lelou said quietly, the phone slippery in her sweaty hand. She glanced nervously at her surroundings, and furtively attempted again to pull down the hem of her skirt with her free hand. _The damned dress feels too short_, she thought in consternation, _what the hell was I thinking?_

"_Lelou, where are you now? Everything is in place, we're all just waiting for you. If you can't leave, I coul—_"

"Reuben, no. Thank you but you can't come here. And I can't go. They're searching for me this instant."

Only one hour ago had seen her hurriedly purchasing a lacy white one-piece and matching heels from giggling salesgirls convinced it was a romantic makeover gift for her imaginary girlfriend. After which, despite initial strenuous objections to her presence in the Ladies', she managed to transform from the dashing Lelouch Lamperouge into… well, not Lelou Lamperouge exactly.

But a girl, at the very least.

Not a moment sooner too, it would seem. Sharply-dressed red uniformed men started marching in, commandeering the exits and preventing anyone from entering or leaving. They stalked menacingly about, scrutinising the men in the mall intensely. A pair had strode off to the security control room where surely even now, they were tracking her down from the videos.

_Clovis' Royal Guard_, Lelou realised with a sinking feeling.

So, he _did_ figure it out.

_What did I say wrong? What did I do wrong? _she had wondered numbly. Or was it just her rotten luck, as usual it would seem today?

She had binned her suit and Oxfords, and snapped her phone in two. Fleeing back to the Ladies', she flushed the phone's memory card down the loo. She had then hesitated, for an agonising moment, before tearfully shredding the photo of her sister that she always kept in her wallet.

Lelou knew she could leave nothing as evidence, nothing that would point to Nunnally's existence. Now that Clovis had cleared the first requirement in figuring out the truth of her identity, the only option left for her was to buy time and ensure that her sister and the Ashfords harbouring her would be safe, at least.

Even if it meant walking to her doom.

_In the grand scheme of things, I have always been nothing more than a sacrificial pawn._

_First for That Man, and now for my sister_.

How she had hated it back then; despised the feeling of being powerless and made to dance to That Man's tune. But for Nunnally, she would accept the fate of being a pawn, of being a sacrifice, calmly and without rancour.

For her, and only her.

"_There must be something that can be done, lass. Something we can do._" Reuben tried to argue.

Her heavy heart warmed slightly at his persistence, but there really _wasn't_ anything to be done.

"No, Reuben. He _knows_ now, about me. There isn't anything we can do to stop him from finding us in Area 11. Not him. But he doesn't know about _Nunnally_." She let that statement hang for a moment before continuing helplessly. "This… this is the only way."

_"…I see."_

"Reuben, I…I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for everything you and your family have done for me and my sister." She said heavily. "And, I'm… trusting you. With Nunnally…please…please take care of her for me."

_"Your mother would have been proud of you, Lelou. Very proud. What you're doing is as brave as anything a true knight would have done."_ Reuben told her quietly.

"Is…is Milly there?" She asked, skirting cautiously around the elephant in the room. _'Is Nunnally there?' _she dreaded to ask.

_"No, lass. She went out with Shirley and Sophie. I thought it more prudent not to pass on the message with other people around."_

"Oh…I see." She continued hesitantly. "There is… a box in the top left cabinet of my wardrobe. Could you tell her to take the documents in it? They're bank accounts…under a few names…I know, I know that's not exactly legal, Reuben." She huffed embarrassedly. Disappointing him had always made her feel slightly ashamed.

"I've named Milly the joint account holder for every one of those accounts, and… I want you to take the money. To use for Nunnally, and also…for everything that you and your family have done for us."

"…_We didn't do it for money, Lucile."_ He told her firmly.

Lelou winced. Reuben only ever called her by her birth name when he was either really displeased or really disappointed with her.

"I know." She said softly. "I just need to…need to help, somehow. Please, take it? I'll feel better if you do."

He sighed. _"Very well."_

"And when Milly comes back, will you tell her for me? Tell her that I'm thankful that we were friends, thankful for all those times she took me down a peg or two…" She hesitated, and resignedly continued. "…and even a bit thankful for all those magic spells…_just _a bit. Tell her that I'll miss her. Her and everyone in the Student Council."

_"I will."_

She stopped speaking after that, her tongue leaden and heavy. The minutes left on her call ticked relentlessly down as she vacillated from doing the most important and most heart-wrenching task of all.

Saying goodbye to her sister.

Reuben wordlessly understood. _"You will want to speak with Nunnally then?" _He broached the subject gently.

"…yes please." She whispered hoarsely.

There was a slight thudding sound as the phone changed hands. And then…

_"…sister?"_

Nunnally's tearful voice sent a searing stab through her heart.

"Nunnally." Lelou shakily breathed, tears starting to well from the corner of her eyes. "Nunnally, I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. You were right, you were _right_. I'm such an idiot. A stupid, selfish, reckless _idiot_."

"_But you told me you wouldn't leave!"_ Her sister wailed. _"You said you weren't going anywhere!"_

"I did. And I was wrong about that." She admitted heavily. "But…do you remember the promise?"

_"…Yes. You promised that you'd always come back to me. Pinky promised."_

"Even if all of Britannia and all its armies stood between us, even if we were separated by mountains and seas and valleys, I'll still come back to you. I promised then, Nunnally, and I still promise it now. I just…just need you to wait for a bit. Wait for me, Nunnally. I'll come back, I swear."

Lelou laughed weakly. "I _really _don't want to swallow a thousand needles too."

Save for her harsh breathing over the phone, her sister stayed silent.

At last, she spoke quietly. _"You'll need to stay alive for you to come back, alright? If you die, it means you broke your promise, you hear?"_ Nunnally's voice quavered. _"I'll wait for you, sister. I'll wait for you forever if I have to. But you need to stay safe, stay alive. Promise me that too._"

"I will, I promise."

And she desperately hoped that she did not have to lie to her sister just then. But who knew really what That Man would do to her? Would Nunnally really spend all her life waiting for a sister who was never coming back?

"Nunnally, I want you to know that I _love _you." Her voice choked with thick emotion as she continued shakily. "I will _always_ love you, my dearest sister. And I will come back to you, I _swear_. But you can't… spend your life waiting forever. You must stay safe, Nunnally, but you must also _live_. More than anything, I want you to be happy and free. I—"

Lelou faltered as she saw them, out of the corner of her eye. The security pair. The Royal Guard in red clutching a paper. Swivelling about with hawklike eyes that prodded and searched. Eyes that finally rested.

On her.

_You have been seen._

"I love you Nunnally forever! Forever!" Lelou blurted quickly.

_"Wai—"_

She slammed the phone back onto the receiver and ran.

"Stop!" A deep voice behind her roared followed by the sound of boots stomping thunderously after her. "Men! It's that one in the white dress! Stop him!"

_It's over_, Lelou thought detachedly as she ran pathetically in her pathetic heels and her pathetic dress.

_This is it. This is the end of all things_.

The warm peace she had basked in for the past six years; the forthright friendships she had gained; the blissful, brooding halcyon days. This was the place where it would all die.

Here, in this soulless Britannian mockery of the past.

* * *

Clovis agitatedly paced in his study. It had already been more than two hours since he had ordered his Royal Guard to bring Lelouch Lamperouge to him. They had yet to return with the lad, much to his displeasure.

Lelouch's parting rejoinder had been echoing incessantly in his mind; his words overlapping with that reclaimed memory of his sister's. Their fateful words would ring in disconcerting unison; her childlike chiming voice and his husky one meshing together discordantly; their features melding and mixing together in his mind's eye. Both smirking that same smirk, both taunting him with the same infuriating knowing look in their purple eyes.

Doubt plagued him as he constantly second-guessed himself. What if he was mistaken? he agonised. What if it proved not to be her? What if it truly was nothing more than a freakish coincidence?

He yanked his drawer open, rummaging feverishly through his things until he found an old photograph of Lelou. Sinking into his chair, Clovis stared intensely at his sister's image, comparing it to his blurred memory of Lelouch. The lad had similar enough features, he mused. Black hair, purple eyes, fine bones, that much he knew.

_But were his eyes the same shade of purple?_ _Was the black of his hair the same black as hers?_

He could not remember, he thought dully. The lights had been too dim, the moment too brief. His mind had been too befuddled by the overwhelming need to solve the puzzle. He just… simply could not recall.

Was he grasping at straws here simply because of a few trifling similarities?

He replaced the photograph carefully into his drawer and closed his eyes with a heavy despairing sigh.

_If it truly proved not to be her_, _then I would have lost her a second time_.

A knock sounded on the door.

_"Your highness?"_

Clovis leapt from his seat and called out shakily. "Enter!"

Miller, the Captain of his Royal Guard, stepped in saluting smartly. "We have captured the target, your highness." Miller reported in clipped military tones. "We tracked down Lelouch Lamperouge in Omotesandō Mall at New Shibuya. I will not bother you with the petty details, my prince. Needless to say the target is currently held here in the Palace awaiting your inspection. Only…"

"Only…?" Clovis asked sharply, his gut twisting uncomfortably. _Only what? Was the boy hurt?_

His captain hesitated briefly and answered. "Only the target was not male, as we had presumed previously. That was part of the initial difficulty in tracking her down. But camera feeds from the mall's surveillance system and closer observation in person proved undoubtedly that Lelouch Lamperouge is indeed female."

_Lelou._

_I was right_, he thought dazedly. _I was right._

He needed to see her. This instant.

Clovis barrelled past the officer. "Bring me to her! At once!" He barked at a surprised Miller who hastily chased after him to lead the way. "And for your own sake, captain." Clovis continued tightly as they strode through the airy corridors of his palace. "She had best not been harmed."

Miller gulped nervously. "We did consciously at every turn avoid to inflict any damage on the target. But in the ensuing chase…she slipped and fell, your highness. Ah, she sustained only a minor bruise, nothing serious!" He then added cautiously. "Um, forgive me, your highness."

"You _chased _her?" Clovis asked incredulously.

"She _ran_." The officer explained helplessly. "We've provided her with medical care, my prince. And we've even placed her in the east wing drawing room for her comfort. Under guard, of course."

_She ran? But why would she run from me?_ Clovis wondered perplexedly. And also, if she had been alive all this time, why has she never made contact? Never returned?

What about Nunnally?

Those baffling questions clamoured in his head as they made their way to the east wing drawing room. Two members of his guard stood watch at the door. They drew up straighter as he and Miller approached, saluting smartly at their prince.

Clovis stopped. He stood there then stock-still, feeling strangely apprehensive as he stared at the door separating him from his long-lost sister. He had been so sure that he had wanted, no, _needed_ to see her then. But now that he was here, he was oddly…afraid.

What would he find after crossing that threshold?

What would change?

_This…this panic is ridiculous_, he thought, _I already met her three hours past!_

He ran unsteady fingers through his hair and nervously straightened his clothes. "How…how do I look?" Clovis asked tremulously.

His guards all answered simultaneously.

"Smashing, you—" "Absolutely stunn—" "Very han—"

They ceased abruptly, looking at each other in chagrin. After a moment of awkward silence, Miller cleared his throat and cautiously volunteered.

"Perfect, my prince. You look just perfect."

Clovis drew a shaky breath. "Very well then. Wait outside." He commanded his guards and pushed the door open.

Two more guards were stationed in the drawing room, but Clovis only had eyes for her. His sister sat in a chair looking out the window pensively, her left foot swathed in bandages. She had changed out of her suit into a petite gown of ivory white layered with delicate lace embellishments. Boyishly cut, tousled black hair framed a familiar thin face, the former nagging feeling that had struck him when he had first glimpsed her at Grey's finally making sense. And as she turned to inspect her latest caller, purple purple amethyst eyes rose to meet his own.

She flinched away.

"Leave us." Clovis distractedly told the two intruding guards. After they had left, he walked slowly, nearly disbelievingly, towards her.

"Lelou… It really is you, isn't it?" Clovis asked hesitantly.

She was silent at first. Then she barked a short humourless laugh and remarked. "If I said no, would you let me go? No further questions asked?"

"Let you go? You say that as if I were holding you captive."

Her eyes flashed. "Because you are!" Lelou snarled at him.

The sheer vitriol in her voice caught him off-guard. "What are you saying? Why are you…? Me…hold you prisoner?" Clovis spluttered.

"If not, then what exactly is this, brother?" Lelou asked him coolly. "You had me hunted down like an animal and now you keep me here in this Tower of London. Am I next to be shipped off to the zoo, to be gawked at, poked and prodded? Or perhaps I am to be sent to the chopping board where you can have my head lopped off like they used to do? Either fate is still a palatable option, I assure you, because the worst thing you can do to me would be to send me to Pendragon. But _that_ is the very thing you're planning this very moment, is it not?" She smiled a chilling smile. "So, brother mine, what are you waiting for? Do your worst."

This was _not_ how Clovis had envisioned his reunion with his sister would be like.

"I have never wished you harm." Clovis said slowly. "Nor will I ever. I only wanted us to be together again, family again."

_"Family?"_ She sneered contemptuously. "Oh yes, our darling precious family, innocent as lambs. First they had my mother murdered, then my sister killed. You want us to be family again, brother? _That_ is the very definition of harm."

His world spun at her words and he stumbled back in horror. "Nunnally _killed?_ Our _family_ had Nunnally killed?" Clovis breathed incredulously.

"They as good as did." Lelou replied bitterly. "_He_ sent us here to be political hostages, as a show of Britannia's good faith. But we were after all just children he had already deemed worthless, pawns to be sacrificed upon the altar of his greed for Sakuradite. We ensured that Japan let its guard down, and then Britannia came, guns blazing."

She clenched her fists, her eyes shining with angry unshed tears. "Did you _really_ think that a crippled, blind girl could survive in a war zone as vicious as the one Britannia created here six years ago? That she could survive the bullet through her brain that a Britannian soldier put there?"

"I had thought… that…since you did…" Clovis responded weakly, as he struggled to accept that it was _Britannia_ and not the Elevens who was responsible for their sister's death.

"Well, you thought _wrong_." Lelou ended bitingly.

_Sweet, gentle Nunnally. Adorable, charming Nunnally. Dead._

_And Lelou_, he thought_, Lelou had been left alone to pick up the pieces, all on her own for six years. _

It was no wonder that she was so embittered, so angry, so afraid. Lelou, he remembered, had always doted on Nunnally, she had always been so fiercely protective of her; much like Cornelia was with Euphie, and Pollux was with Castor. When Clovis was younger, he had been resentful that he did not have that. He had always wanted a full-blooded sibling of his own, he had wanted the closeness that bond brought.

But then he had had Lelou, and he had thought that even though they did not share the same mother, even though she would always reserve her full devotion to another sibling, it would be enough. Enough that he _had_ someone to feel that bond for, whatever she had thought of him in return.

And then he had lost her.

Clovis did not think it would be a stretch to say that he knew _exactly_ how Lelou felt about losing Nunnally.

He cautiously stepped to his sister's tense suspicious form and knelt beside her. "I will never allow harm to befall you, Lelou." Clovis vowed, taking her cold, stiff hand into his own. "You will be safe again, and in time happy again. I will do everything within my power to make it so."

His sister grasped his hand tightly. "Then _don't_ send me to Pendragon." Lelou said hoarsely. "Don't send me back to _him_. Let me go. Let me live my life freely."

Lelou's desperate request threw him into a quandary. "I…I cannot _not_ inform His Majesty about your survival." Clovis said helplessly even as her expression became shuttered once more. "But I will go with you to Pendragon! I will _make _him understand. He will forgive you, I promise!"

"He won't." Lelou said darkly, pulling her hand out of his. "And even if he grudgingly does, what then? What other charming fate can I expect after that? Will I be sent to the EU as another red herring before the inevitable war?" She laughed bitterly. "Oh, but I'm slightly more grown now, am I not? Perhaps he'll sell me off as breeding stock to the highest bidder. Just like cattle."

Clovis wanted to deny her words, deny the fate she had sketched for herself. But he found that he could not, because he could never really _know_.

"I will request His Majesty to allow you to be here with me in Area 11." Clovis told her gently. "Far away from Pendragon, far away from all that you fear. I…I will make up some pretence for the reason that I need you here. You will be safe here under my protection."

"I will be the safest with him never knowing." Lelou said firmly. "He does not know of my existence and he will never know if you don't _tell_ him." She looked at him pleadingly then. "You _can_ also let me go and this whole conundrum will just untangle on its own."

He stood up abruptly, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I will not _ever_ let you leave me, so you can cease your endless prattling of it." Clovis told her curtly.

"Then keep me with you if that pleases you!" His sister retorted heatedly. "_He_ does not need to know that. You can keep me as a ward of your court without needing to ask Pendragon, no one will be the wiser."

"I set my guards to capture you so you can be a ward of my court?" Clovis questioned sceptically.

She huffed impatiently. "You could always say that you wanted me _so _much that you had me carried of. Like in those sappy novels you used to read."

_She remembered the books I used to speak so ardently of?_

_I thought she was only humouring me then._

Clovis felt a sudden surge of affection for his sister. "As Brian de Bois-Guilbert did Rebecca? What am I then, the villain?" He jested with a light smile.

Lelou smiled in return, the first he had seen since he last spoke with her at Grey's. "_I_ personally have always thought of him as the misunderstood hero. I remember thinking that if I were Rebecca, I would never have batted an eye at Ivanhoe." She gazed up at him, her eyes shining with faint mischief.

The breathtaking purple of her amethyst eyes drew him in and left him flustered and bothered. Distantly, Clovis felt his face heat uncomfortably, his heart quicken and his ears thrum loudly.

_What…what is this?_

He blinked rapidly in bewilderment.

"Well then, what do you think?" His sister pressed impatiently.

'What did he think?' Clovis repeated distractedly.

_Ah._

What _did_ he think? Could he keep her here with him, safe and secret? That could potentially succeed. After all, what possible interest could Father take in his private affairs? As long as Area 11 remained a functioning cog in the Empire's machine, no one of import in Pendragon really cared about his carry-ons. Clovis could abduct a thousand maidens, hoard them all in his palace and no one would bother him about it so long as the Sakuradite continued to flow.

But then again, it also only took just the _one_ wrong maiden to cause an absolute uproar. The very one sitting in front of him.

_That route is too dangerous. But how to make her see the sense of it?_

"I cannot do that, Lelou." He said at length. "It would be the most reckless folly. It would only take one untrustworthy person to make the connection to the lost Third Princess for the secret to out. And if _I_ could, why not another?" Clovis looked imploringly at her. "Keeping this secret from His Majesty is lying to him. And lying to the Emperor of Britannia is tantamount to treason. I will be _disinherited_ if he ever finds out!"

Lelou stared coldly at him for an interminably long moment.

Then she snorted in disgust. "How nice to know your priorities, brother. I guess this then is how much you value your little sister. Not as much as your _inheritance_, it would seem." Lelou turned to the window, resolutely looking anywhere but at him. "Very well. Go then, brother. Go forth and do your worst."

Clovis squirmed uncomfortably where he stood. He had never meant to disappoint her. But the _danger…_

"I will go with you." He repeated weakly. "You won't have to face Father alone. And then we'll be together again, like we used to be. Play chess again like we used to do in the gardens of the Aries villa."

Lelou refused to speak, refused to look at him.

"I-I will be going then. To call the Prime Minister. Ah, that's Schneizel now, did you know? Of course you would know, it isn't exactly a secret. It wasn't as if you were living in China." Clovis babbled on nervously. "You will be very well taken care of for the time being. I will see to it that you are given the best rooms."

His sister remained obstinate in her silence.

_She will see in the end that this is for the best_, he thought, _and when she does, she will forgive me._

Clovis backed away slowly as one would in an encounter with an aggravated lioness. He paused at the door, looking at her frigid aloof figure sadly. "I am really overjoyed, you know? That you are alive." He said quietly. "Everything will be fine. I promise you that."

He fled at that.

* * *

It had nearly been an hour already since Clovis had sat down in his study. Nearly an hour already spent staring blankly at his monitor.

Family.

His sister had spat the word as if it were poison. Family had murdered her mother, Lelou had accused. Family had abandoned her to die in a battlefield, she had seethed. Family had killed her sister, she had raged. And it was to family that Clovis would be delivering her should he dial the number to his brother's office.

He had thought that it would be an easy task. He had already made up his mind to do it. But every time he reached out to punch in the numbers, doubt stayed his hand.

The official story of Lady Marianne's death had always been that she was assassinated by terrorists. But that mere terrorists could penetrate the defences of such a highly guarded compound as the Imperial Villa at Aries and escape undetected had always been a laughable thought. Whispers had abounded then in the Imperial Court that Lady Marianne's death must have been the result of palace intrigue; that someone from within the court must have planned her murder.

Clovis had always had the highest regard for his family. He thought them the finest people in the land, for who else could be suited to rule more than the best? A select few he even loved: his mother as a matter of course, Lelou, Nunnally, Cornelia, Euphie, Odysseus, Guinevere, and even Schneizel. As for Lady Marianne, he had always admired and respected her, even though she was not of his blood or of noble lineage. After all, he would not be a prince today if she had not played her part then in the struggle to place his father on the throne.

But Clovis had always been resigned to the fact that jealousy and envy could darken the hearts of even the best of people.

Even his family.

It would be to the place where her mother was murdered that Clovis would be returning his precious sister to. It would be to the people who had once called her the Peasant Princess who he will be returning her to. He had believed then that Lelou would forgive him eventually, but now that he was here, his finger poised to seal her fate, Clovis wondered, _would she really?_

Lelou had taken their father abandoning her and Nunnally in the former Japan as the betrayal of the worst kind. Would Clovis delivering her to that very man be any different of a betrayal to her?

Clovis slammed his hand on the table in frustration. He had always despised conflict, had always feared the possibility of danger. And here he was, caught between Scylla and Charybdis. On one hand, he would lose his sister's love and affection for evermore. On the other, he would lose his power, his position and his prestige.

_Which? Which is more important?_

_Lelou had taunted me, saying that I evidently valued my inheritance more than I did my own sister, _he thought despairingly, _but how can I protect her without that power?_

He grimaced, and decided.

It took only a few rings for the call to connect, and then his brother's serene face appeared on the screen.

"Good evening, Clovis. This is a rather pleasant surprise." Schneizel smiled affably. "The hour must be growing late now in Area 11, surely it would be better that you take your rest first and call me in the morning? I do not mind being disturbed at a later hour."

"I thank you for your concern, brother. But there is something pressing that I need to speak to you of."

His brother quirked an eyebrow at that. "Oh? How intriguing. What might be so important that it could not wait until morning?"

Clovis hesitated an agonising moment, and told him.

* * *

He had placed her in a room overlooking a garden, Lelou realised as she watched the dawn break over the horizon, a rosy blush tinged with gold painting the sky.

And not just any garden, but one that looked eerily similar to the gardens at Aries. Gardens that she would be consigned to walk in soon once her coward of a brother delivered her to That Man, gift-wrapped in a shiny bow. If she was even lucky enough to survive, that is.

Lelou grabbed a porcelain vase from her side table and flung it across the room in fury. The vase smashed against the wall, shattering into a hundred pieces. Its remains joining similar remnants of valuables scattered on the floor: a broken antique clock, smashed china, shreds of drapery and so on and so forth. Lelou had previously also taken one of the larger shards of china in hand and hobbled over to the two old master paintings hanging on the wall. She had then vindictively slashed deep gouges into those priceless works of art, spitefully imagining them to be her art-loving brother's craven face.

She had not held out too much hope that Clovis would be her ally from the onset. But she had admittedly _gambled_ desperately on the fondness he had shown her when they were younger. A gamble that did not pay off, despite her efforts to appeal to his delusions of being a knight rescuing a damsel in distress.

_I should have just gone and bought a pair of jeans instead of dressing like an ingénue_, she thought aggrievedly. _Would have saved me a great deal of embarrassment too!_

Lelou may have already resigned herself to the fate of being drawn back into the fold of her _'family' _for Nunnally's sake_, _but she had never gone into a hopeless fight without kicking, biting, plotting and scheming to the very bitter end.

And now it would seem that said bitter end was nigh.

Clovis, she could have handled. Her brother was after all, at heart, a gentle timid soul despite his perchance for unthinking cruelty and overwhelming snobbery. But That Man was a beast of an entirely different breed. Unpredictable, cruel for the simple sake of it, and most daunting of all, omnipotent in the heartland of Britannia. Lelou stood no chance before him, powerless and friendless as she was.

_'You are dead. You have always been dead to me, dead from the moment you were born. Who gave you the fine clothes you wear and comfortable home? The food you eat and your very life? All of those, I have given to you, in short you are nothing to me because you have never existed.' _

Her fists clenched tightly at the memory. That was the day the scales fell from her eyes; the day she was completely and utterly disabused of all notions that the man she had called Father had even remotely cared for her or Nunnally. She did not think that he could even _feel_ attachment. He had supposedly loved Mother ardently enough to wed her against all tradition. Where was that love the day she died?

And now the only thing Lelou could do was throw herself at his non-existent mercy, and hope grimly for another day, for another chance to fight. The thought of it both rankled and despaired her.

Her fingers itched to smash something again.

Two raps sounded on her door.

_"Lelou? May I enter?" _her brother's muffled voice sounded from the outside.

So the time has come then. The time for her to be hauled back into that nest of vipers. Far far away from Nunnally, with only a distant chance Lelou could ever fulfil her promise.

Her brother sighed. _"I'm entering now, Lelou. I do hope you are decent." _There was a sound of the handle turning and Clovis stepped in leisurely, eyeing her wreckage of a room with a bemused air.

Until he saw her handiwork with the two paintings, that is.

"The Boucher!" Clovis screeched, rushing wild-eyed to the painting, fluttering his hands over it in agony. And then he gazed at the other vandalised work, looking ready to faint. "Wat…Watteau's_ Embarkation for Cynthera_…" He murmured despairingly.

Her brother looked at her then with a heavily martyred expression. "I had almost forgotten how vindictive you could be in taking your revenge. You have set me back by _millions_ of pounds. Not to mention, the _art…the_ _history!_"

She stubbornly turned her gaze away.

_Oh this isn't even the tip of my iceberg of revenge, brother mine._

"And I see that you choose to remain silent still." He walked to her bedside and sat down at its edge with a long-suffering sigh. Lelou pointedly scooted away from him, resolutely showing him her sullen back.

"I supposed I am rather hated now, am I not?"

_Hate doesn't even begin to cover it, brother. When the time comes, I'll serve you back today wi—_

"Perhaps you may think differently of me if you knew my latest reckless folly?"

_—with interest a thou… What?_

Lelou turned around sharply, gaping at her faintly smiling brother in utter disbelief.

'_Reckless folly'? _she thought dumbfounded, _but that was what he called…_

"Rebecca." Clovis said softly. "Thou art like to cost me dear. Why cannot I abandon thee to thy fate?"

She continued to stare open-mouthedly at him.

He laughed lightly at her expression. "You still have nothing to say, little sister? Perhaps 'Thank you for your _forbearance_, brother,' or 'I am sorry that my temper tantrum destroyed _priceless_ art, brother,' or something of the sort?"

At last she managed a strangled whisper. "Y-you did not call Schneizel then?"

"Oh, I did." He said sombrely. "But I changed my mind in the end. I could not tell him about you."

_Y-you -changed- your mind?!_

Sometimes… her brother's sheer indecisiveness just takes her breath away, Lelou thought faintly.

But, well…she was most definitely _not_ going to shoot the gift horse in the mouth. Even if she found the sudden _complete_ turnaround hard to comprehend. After all, what was the catch? Lelou wondered bewilderedly. Why is Clovis suddenly throwing his fortunes in with hers? What could possibly have made him change his mind?

Affection and pity for his sister? Lelou found that hard to swallow. And besides, she had not forgotten about her mother's unsolved murder.

_I have no true reason to trust you yet, Clovis_, she thought warily, _but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for doing this for me. _

_For now._

A thought struck her then. "Then what _did_ you talk to him about?" She demanded in sudden alarm. "Schneizel is no fool, brother. He'll know immediately if you give him the slightest hint that something is up."

Clovis clammed up at that. "I am keeping your secret, Lelou. I am not required to tell you _mine_." He said stiffly.

"A secret that _Schneizel_ knows?"

"An unfortunate necessity. And that is all I will say to it." He ended with finality.

As intriguing as her brother's secret was, for now she had enough on her plate to deal with. Her own problem at hand, for example. "So what is your brilliant plan to keep me then, brother? Let us hear it." Lelou asked casually.

Clovis looked thoughtfully at her. "You will stay with me as my newest aide, as Lelouch Lamperouge. Only the guards and my inner household servants know that the truth of your sex. They are loyal to me, but to be safe we will let them believe that little story of yours about my infatuation. Otherwise, you make a very convincing young man. If we are careful, no one on the outside will ever think to connect Lelouch Lamperouge with Lucile vi Britannia. After all, he can hardly be a princess as a man."

She blinked.

_Not bad, Clovis._

"I'm rather impressed, brother." Lelou said finally. "But it is not exactly long-term, is it? I may make a convincing young man now, but for how much longer?"

"Well, His Majesty will not live forever, will he?"

She glanced at him sharply. "Is that the whiff of treason I am smelling, your highness?"

_Is this what he and Schneizel are plotting together then? How interesting._

Clovis shrugged. "'Tis no treason to say that a man is mortal."

_'Tis true, brother. 'Tis true indeed._

The gears in her mind started turning then. She had of course been under no self-aggrandising illusions that she was alone in planning conflict with That Man. Schneizel as an ally would not be half-bad, all things considered. He had the might of the Empire's resources to back him, and with those resources on her side, she might finally get to the truth behind her mother's murder. On his part, he could surely see the benefits of an ally who could use those resources _efficiently_, and who had absolutely no desire for that wretched throne at that.

Of course, she intended to ensure that Charles zi Britannia was both 98th _and_ last Emperor of Britannia, but Schneizel need not know that.

And as for the man she had once called Father, Lelou thought savagely.

_Anything can happen._

"_Leloouu_?"

"Hmm?" She absent-mindedly returned to a plaintive-looking Clovis.

"Are you truly not going to show me _some_ form of gratitude? Not even a hug or a kiss on the cheek?" Her brother asked mournfully.

_A hug or a kiss on the cheek? Do you still think me a little girl, Clovis? _

_No matter, I have just the thing._

"Quite right, brother. I see that I have been remiss in my manners." She paused theatrically as her brother leaned forward, eagerly awaiting.

Then she intoned. "_'Thank you'_ for your forbearance, brother. I am sorry that my temper tantrum _destroyed_ priceless art, brother." Lelou smiled winsomely. "How was that?"

Clovis looked disgustedly at her.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	3. Suffer Fools Gladly

Chapter 3 : Suffer Fools Gladly

* * *

Lelou pulled at the hem of her coat restlessly, holding back fingers that itched to rip off the stuffy grey cravat from her neck. Her coat was as black as ebony, its fastenings silver. Beneath it she wore a grey waistcoat and a white dress shirt. The effect of it all was rather constricting, she thought sourly, what with a fancy noose about her neck and _four_ whole layers of clothing if one includes her breast binds.

Lush flowers adorned the Palace's main ballroom, its marble floors teeming with virtually every highborn, knight and esteemed person there could be in Area Eleven. Garbed in the bright silks and velvets of the season, Clovis' noble subjects gaily whirled away the annual Mayday evening ball under swaying sprigs of roses, lilacs, rhododendrons, peonies and azaleas.

It all made for a very pretty picture, Lelou will concede. She stood on high beside her brother's throne gazing down dispassionately at the entire scenery.

All that grand pageantry, all that glamorous decadence, all that obscene wealth on display.

_Classic Britannian wastefulness_, she thought with a scoff.

To her mind's eye, she could see only serpents teeming the ballroom floor. Serpents who called themselves lords and ladies. Coldblooded finely garbed fork-tongued snakes who bartered with innocent lives and livelihoods whilst nibbling caviar hors d'oeuvres and sipping vintage champagne.

How she despised them.

Her seated brother looked up at her with a carefree grin. "Enjoying the sights, Lelouch?" Clovis asked as he distractedly twirled a stray lock of hair at his temple with his free hand.

Lelou smiled thinly at her brother. "Yes, your highness. It's a real eye-opener."

_And then there was Clovis_, she thought with mixed feelings. Her princely brother in his fine blue silk coat, flute of golden champagne in hand, and lord over them all.

She ought to hate _him_ most of all, he who by all rights she should revile as Prince Snake himself. But life had a funny way of upending her plans. The man she ought to despise the most in this room going simply by principle was also her closest ally and most valuable lifeline.

She dismissed her misgivings morosely. Whatever her true feelings towards her brother may be, nothing else mattered more than the need to survive this predicament and one day fulfil her promise to Nunnally.

Besides, there were bigger, more terrible monsters in this world than Clovis.

"Surely an _uncommon_ sight to those eyes of yours, boy?"

The Duke Calares commented in a loud voice, standing arrogantly to the right of her brother's throne. The copper-skinned red-haired nobleman caught her gaze and smirked as his jibe at her 'commoner' heritage provoked a wave of muffled giggles from the noble entourage clustered near the high dais.

Lelou turned away from the sneering duke with a dismissive sniff. She would not give him satisfaction by dignifying that petty slight with a reply. It was not even an original insult in truth, for many a noble had said it to her face often enough over the past month and a half.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Clovis glancing at her apologetically. But as _ever_ he said nothing in her defence. Like That Man had left her lady mother defenceless in that pit of vipers called the Imperial Court, so too now did her brother with her. The thought of it bade her clench her jaw resentfully.

"No clever answer to that, boy? Lost that _skilful_ tongue of yours somewhere now did you?" The duke continued to goad, his jaw jutting out belligerently.

The other nobles were watching them hungrily now. _Jackals_, Lelou thought with a grimace, _just waiting to hoot at the bloodsport_. She had been content to let this latest swipe of the duke's go over her head unchallenged. It would have even been forgotten in due time.

_But since Calares insists…_

She fixed her cold eyes on his and curled her lips into a chilling smile. It was a look she accidentally discovered back at Ashford that worked unfailingly against social nuisances like overeager teenaged boys. Rivalz had once even nervously confided that it made her look like a complete psychopath.

Lelou's crazy slasher-smile, Milly had teasingly coined it.

"What did you say, m'lord? Oh, yes _quite_." Lelou sweetly said to the suddenly faltering man. "Still it all pales in comparison to the _really _uncommon sight. I do so urge you to feast your eyes upon _that_, m'lord, since uncommon sights seem to please you so. It isn't all that far away if you just looked properly."

She smirked. "That is, if you know what I mean."

Her teasing riddling words gave him a pause.

"I do not. Make your meaning clearer, boy." Calares stiffly replied.

"But where's the fun in that, m'lord?" Lelou drawled, a hint of sly mischief playing on her lips. "All you need to do is just look _closer_ and you'll see it. I swear!"

She pointedly swept her eyes over the duke's garments, a rather ludicrous ensemble obviously calculated to impress with the obscene amount of money that must have gone into its make: stitched-on pink diamonds on his dark blue tunic, the most expensive fur cloak money could buy and a heavy-looking elaborate gold belt.

The nearby Earl MacArthur started chortling. "Oh I _see_ now, boy." He chuckled mirthfully, sneaking an entertained glance at the bewildered duke, his political opponent. "Most uncommon indeed! I dare say that all you need to see it is just a little _perspective_, my lord Calares."

"You take the boy's side, my lord MacArthur?" The duke's eyes narrowed dangerously at the earl.

"Oh no, my lord Calares. I would not do something so crass and juvenile as to take _sides_ of all things. No, I speak only the truth as I see it. And when I see _folly_ before my eyes, why I believe it would be a disservice to Britannia should I be made to hold my tongue."

That apparently struck a raw nerve.

The duke harrumphed indignantly. "Now see here, my lord MacArthur…"

Calares went on to take some rather nasty shots at the MacArthur family honour, something to do with bastards and blood was all Lelou could glean bemusedly from the man's near incoherent rant. Whatever the case may be, the steely-eyed earl understood Calares well enough.

And did not take to the duke's words too kindly at all. The two of them were soon embroiled in an increasingly vehement argument.

With Lelou completely forgotten in its wake.

_Success,_ she smirked triumphantly.

"Lelouch." Her brother called out, beckoning with a bejewelled finger. _Like one would gesture to a dog_, Lelou noted in irritation as she crouched down by his throne.

"That was rather masterfully done." Clovis whispered.

"No thanks to _you_."

Clovis glanced down at her, cautiously raising the flute near his mouth to obscure the sight of his lips.

"You know I would not have hesitated if I were free to act as your brother, Lelou." He chided softly, sneaking his free hand into hers and squeezing it lightly in contrition. "But as ruling prince of Area Eleven, I cannot be seen to _overly_ favour you over my closest advisors. Even Pendragon would take notice if I did."

_Same old excuse, Clovis._

She pressed her lips together in displeasure and nodded stiffly.

"So is _that_ all you wanted to tell me?"

A smile crept across his face and he laughed airily. "But of course not!"

Beaming, Clovis set down his champagne flute and gestured grandly at this year's May Queen below who blushed to gain his notice.

"Would you like a rose crown of your own?" Clovis enquired earnestly, and louder than she would have preferred. "I could have one arranged, a marvellous creation of thornless blue roses much lovelier than that _thing _on her head. What do you say, Lelouch?"

Lelou snatched her hand back from his hold and shot her brother a baleful look.

"I do _not_ want a rose crown. What would even be the _point?" _She hissed furiously through gritted teeth, ignoring the hurt look in his eyes. "I am a _man._ I don't need more ridiculous rumours about me being bandied among your subjects. They're bad enough already."

_Too late_, she noted bleakly, glimpsing the fascinated stares and furtive whispering that followed her brother's thoughtless if well-intentioned offer.

_They're looking at me again. _

_Laughing at me again._

Bile rose into her throat, and Lelou felt certain then she would vomit if she remained up here any longer for all to jeer at. She stood up abruptly and bowed low. "If your highness permits, I should like leave to enjoy your fine party."

Her brother started in surprise, then protested weakly. "But…you should not…"

Lelou narrowed her eyes.

He winced and waved her off half-heartedly. "Oh, very well. Go ahead and enjoy yourself, Lelouch." He added nervously. "Return soon! Do not stray too far away! And remain where I can see you!"

She fought to keep the annoyance from showing on her face as she descended the stairs of the dais. Clovis had been the epitome of hand-wringing anxiety for the past month and a half. To hear him speak, there were OSI agents crouched behind every curtain and assassins stalking them in every darkened corridor in the palace.

Lelou may have always prided herself on being cautious, minus that one grand mistake that landed her with her brother in the first place, but Clovis' sheer paranoia just takes the cake.

The brightly dressed nobility at the bottom eyed her approach apprehensively. Largely thanks to the lurid rumours that had spread following Lelouch's emergence in Area Eleven's spotlight, there were really only two kinds of nobility who would actively seek her out, the rest being more inclined to disdain her.

Those who sought to abuse her and those who sought to use her.

Invariably they would come to her and invariably she would send them packing. Scorn her, insult her, _try _to deceive her. Let them come, she would say any time.

But not tonight.

She'd had enough of them for the night. Tonight, there were just too many of the kinds of people she despised gathered in the same place. Tonight, she missed the last day to visit the blooming cherry blossoms in the parks, something she did every year in spring with Nunnally.

Tonight, she just _really_ missed her sister. All she desired now was to stand outside at that wide open balcony across the floor, breathe in the free air and stare into the dark beyond.

Thinking of Nunnally.

Thinking of freedom and salvation.

A familiar looking red-faced lordling dressed in forest green drunkenly shoved into her. He turned to her with a snarl and bared teeth. "Watch where you're goi—" He began with a glare before cutting himself off abruptly at the sight of her.

"Good evening to you, m'lord Mackenzie." Lelou greeted with a fake bright smile, stretching out her hand politely towards the very same man she had bested in a chess match that fateful day.

Lord Hamish rapidly paled, mumbling a strangled 'good evening' before turning on his heel and fleeing.

Lelou withdrew her proffered hand decorously and continued through the shrinking sea of nobility._ And Moses stretcheth out his hand towards the sea, and Jehovah causeth the sea to go on by a strong east wind all the night, and maketh the sea become dry ground, and the waters are cleaved,_ she thought with wry amusement.

"You there! Boy!"

A silky voice called out.

Lelou paused. '_Boy' in this room can only mean me, right? _

A woman emerged out of the cautious throng, one Lelou could only describe as _red. _The curly hair piled artfully atop her head was reddish brown, her lips deep crimson and her nails painted a bright red. The gown she wore was a shimmering ruby hue and sheer in places that left many a man staring with gaping mouths.

She stood now before Lelou, her light blue eyes slowly and suggestively sweeping over her form.

"Yes, m'lady?" Lelou asked with a bland smile, unfazed by the sheer amount of pheromones the woman was emitting.

_If you think you can sexually unnerve me, my lady, you'd best think again, _she thought.

_Milly Ashford has already ruined me for these kinds of encounters_.

The woman's crimson lips curved then into a mirthful delighted grin.

"Well now… _that's_ a new reaction. I am the Baroness Randall, boy. You may cease holding back your urge to swoon now. I do not mind it in the least, I assure you."

_So it is the 'use' type then._

Lelou bowed gentlemanly. "I'd swoon to your beauty, m'lady. But this skull of mine here is pretty fragile." She drew a finger over her temple and lightly tapped it, smiling in self deprecation. "One hard fall is all it would take to crack my head wide open, and then things would get… well, _messy_."

"Poor dear." The baroness tittered. "You must live in fear every minute of your life."

_You have no idea._

"Well that's life for you." Lelou replied with mock regret. "Could you take my compliments on how ravishing you look tonight instead, m'lady? I'm sorry but that's all a poor commoner like myself could possibly afford."

The baroness burst into laughter. "And here I thought you would try to avoid mention of your unfortunate background, boy. How delightfully amusing!" She smiled archly and curtsied. "Here is another thing you may afford, my poor little church mouse."

"Oh?"

"A dance." Randall held out a gloved hand challengingly. "You _do_ know how to dance, don't you?"

Lelou blinked.

That was new. Usually even the second type would not stoop to offer this kind of regard.

"I did get some pointers before the ball." She gave the proffered hand a hesitant glance. "Very last-minute stuff though. Perhaps m'lady would prefer a more experienced partner?"

"Your lady would prefer _you_, boy."

Lelou eyed the determined lady still loftily holding out her hand and helplessly realised she had no polite way out of this. She snuck her balcony a regretful sidelong glance.

_Soon_, she promised herself.

"Would m'lady rescue me if I trip?" Lelou replied wryly, taking the proffered hand and kissing it lightly.

"Your lady will. We hardly want splattered brains strewn across the ballroom floor now, do we?"

"No, we do not indeed." Lelou murmured, leading the baroness into the whirling waltzing crowd.

With Lelou's hand on the baroness' hip, they glided across the ballroom in smooth intricate loops, whirling and twirling gracefully. But the baroness was hardly satisfied with just that. "Aren't you ever going to lift me, boy?" She asked almost exasperatedly as Lelou whirled her around again.

"You are _three_ inches taller than me." Lelou grounded out, flushed and breathless by then from all the exhausting whirling about.

The baroness laughed gaily. "And what does that have to do with anything?"

_Absolutely everything, you demanding twit._

She ignored the waiting woman.

"It isn't _right_." Randall pouted after a few whirling turns spent firmly on the ground, her pretty face artfully arranged in a woebegone expression. "Treating a lady so poorly. What would your prince say? Come now, just a _little_ spin?"

Lelou took a deep breath and gritted her teeth in irritation. _Might as well try or I'll hear no end to it._

She shifted her hands quickly to catch under the lady's arms just as they twisted into a turn, hoping fervently that the sheer momentum would give her the force she needed to lift the baroness in the air.

It did not work.

"Oh my!" Randall exclaimed in surprise as she stumbled from the force of the failed lift narrowly avoiding a collision with another dancing pair. Wildly grabbing hold of Lelou's coat, she thankfully managed to steady herself sparing them both further embarrassment. Huffing audibly, the baroness threw her an incredulous look.

She distantly felt her cheeks burn even as they resumed dancing awkwardly, her fingers fairly twitching on the baroness' waist in embarrassed agitation.

"Sorry." Lelou half-muttered her shamefaced apology

Randall's mouth split into a wide impish grin at that. "_Somebody_ has been neglecting the gym of late~" She sang out mercilessly.

Lelou pointedly stared in another direction as the woman started laughing in amusement.

"I shan't hold it against you, boy. But there _is_ a thing I would like you to do for me in return. I'll reward you most handsomely for it."

_Here it comes._

She gazed at the woman steadily.

"And what would that be, m'lady?"

"Call me by my name. _Celia_." She replied merrily, giving her a teasing wink. "_That's _what I wanted. And in return, I'll reward you with my friendship. Is that not a fair deal, boy?"

Lelou remained silent for a while before flatly asking.

"Why?"

"I first saw you a month ago, did you know?" The corners of the baroness' eyes crinkled as she smiled at Lelou, her light blue eyes becoming soft and kind.

"At Shizuoka when his highness retreated to paint. I was there… being nosy I must confess! I wanted to see that devilish boy schemer everyone was talking about for myself, to see what kind of plots you were cooking up. Then it turned out that the devilish boy schemer was sitting by the lake watching ducklings of all things. You smiled at the sight then… so sadly when you thought no one was looking. And I told myself, all that awful talk surely could not be true, not a cute sensitive young man like that! I just… really want to be your friend, that's all."

Lelou took all this in silently.

_This could all just be another tactic_, she thought stubbornly after a moment. This Celia Randall could just as likely be taking the scenic route to her true purpose, mouthing friendship to 'Lelouch' thinking him to be a trusting gullible boy.

_Kind words to cloak true wants_._ A pleasant smile to mask the greed within._

Whatever the baroness' true purpose was though, Lelou was certain it will soon surface.

They all do eventually. All she need do was wait.

She raised her hand high and twirled the baroness in a quick turn just as the waltz entered its coda, taking the opportunity to cast a casual glance towards the dais and her brother on his throne.

Clovis was in turn unabashedly staring hard at the pair of them, his narrowed blue eyes following their every move beadily. He looked not to be pleased, but then again her brother had never been pleased with any stranger who sought to strike up even a mere acquaintance with her, always treating them with mistrust and suspicion.

Not that there had been many, or even any among them who eventually proved sincere.

_Is it Clovis then, Celia Randall?_

_Like all the rest who came before you, is it my brother's favour you seek through me? _

However the neat little idea frustratingly did not measure up with what she could perceive. The woman was certainly pretty enough for Clovis' tastes that it would have been far easier to just seduce him and be done with it. Not to mention the baroness' own reputation could then have been spared a damaging connection to the commoner upstart.

_I'll just have to play along and find out_, she decided at length.

Meanwhile, she would grasp the proffered hand and milk that 'friendship' for all its worth. Ever keeping one eye peering warily at the baroness for hints of deceit and the other fixed to her back.

Awaiting the inevitable descent of the dagger.

The waltz soon came to an end as she and the baroness respectively bowed and curtsied in unison.

"Lelouch." Lelou offered succinctly as they applauded the band of musicians.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I have a _name_, Celia." Lelou said patiently. "Lelouch Lamperouge. But just Lelouch will do as well."

Randall smiled happily at her unspoken acceptance and reached out to clasp her arm.

"Well then, Lelouch. Would you like to go meet my friends?"

Lelou flickered her eyes to her beloved balcony feeling torn, faced once again as she was by a force pulling her away from Nunnally. If only from the memory of her sister. But this time, temptation beckoned with the impetus of a mystery unsolved.

_It will not take all that long_, she tried to convince herself.

Soon. Soon she will have all the time in the world to think of Nunnally.

_But for now…_

"Lead the way, Celia." She smiled politely at the baroness.

* * *

"Absolutely scandalous!"

"Aye, leaving his noble-born legitimate wife to set up with an Eleven harlot. Such disgrace from a man who ought to know better!"

"I heard the tart was swelling with child."

"Disgusting."

"Such acts ought to be outlawed, made punishable in the strictest way!"

"Hear hear!"

The severe-looking lady who had called for criminalising miscegenation rounded on Lelou. "And what say you, young man?" She demanded. "Surely even commoners would think such an unnatural thing abominable?"

_I think I am like to puke if I stayed a minute longer in your abominable company. _

She had followed Randall to meet what must be the snootiest group in the entire ballroom, half of which by the look of their red wing pins belonged to the Purist Faction. _Charming_ people, really. They would have quickly withdrawn as she approached if not for the lady cheerfully walking beside her, hand in arm.

When the baroness blithely made the introductions, some had even openly glared at Lelou with horrified indignation, fastidiously refusing to shake her hand. But Randall was well-liked enough and Lelou kept herself unobtrusively quiet enough that they soon forgot that the commoner upstart still remained among them, sullying them with 'his' presence.

But now an answer was expected, it would seem.

"And what exactly about this tale are we to find abominable?" Lelou asked coolly, leaning against the graceful column with her arms crossed. "That the man walked out of a loveless marriage or that he shamed his wife so needlessly? That he disgraced his family or that he decided to do right by his own offspring? Some of his actions I find deplorable, true. But not all of them are unworthy."

She refused to discuss the issue of his lover's race.

To no avail.

"You left out him cavorting with a Number, boy!" The woman thundered. "Dragged the good name of MacArthur through the mud and dirtied their blood with a half-breed bastard to boot! Is _that_ worthy, I ask you?"

_Oh yes, and inbreeding is the best way to evolve as a species. Our future as a Darwinistic society is bright._

"_That_ is a matter solely for the MacArthurs to sort out, for the Earl MacArthur to deal with as family patriarch. Their blood, their family." Lelou countered. "I don't see how it is anyone's place to barge into their private affairs."

"Hear hear!" Randall chimed, eyes fairly shining with amusement as many began murmuring in uncomfortable agreement. Protecting the purity of the bloodline may be a cause these people would champion, but likely not at the cost of having _their_ personal affairs pried into.

"Leave it be then, you say? Should we truly though?" Margrave Gottwald spoke up in his deep voice, the knight's brows furrowed in deep thought.

"Set a precedent and this could grow like a malignant cancer to trouble all of good Britannian society. These children cannot be consigned out of hand to the monkeys in the ghettoes, but neither would they have any place or right to be amongst us. Would it not be wiser and indeed kinder, if a more sweeping solution as Lady Silva…" He nodded graciously at the mollified woman. "… had previously suggested, be set into place?"

_Spoken like a true member of the Purist Faction._

"Maybe so, Margrave." Lelou said evenly. "Perhaps it is not my place to say this being as I am, young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. But what little I have learnt from a study of history has oft shown me that sweeping solutions to 'fix' society as it were, tend to stray dangerously beyond their original purpose."

Lelou spoke louder, addressing both the knight and the closely listening group.

"It may begin in a civilised fashion, my lord, but where would it end? When threats fail, when imprisonment fails, when the cancellation of the Honorary Britannian system fails, when pogroms against the Elevens fail; what then would your Final Solution to that cancer be?" She smiled thinly. "Murdering babes with Britannian blood for the crime of having one wrong parent?"

_Because god only knew, murdering Japanese babes for the crime of being born is somehow alright with these people._

The knight spluttered in protest.

"No? Then what if we considered this instead?" Lelou swept her hand expansively. "There is no need for a solution to a problem that does not exist."

Indignant voices cried out in disagreement.

"No, hear me!" Lelou spoke loudly. "What other incidents followed this unfortunate tale? How many had occurred before? Not many, I wager. I am not saying this sort of thing would never happen again. But only that when it does, the number of times and effect thereof would be negligible."

She continued. "Outlaw it though, and I guarantee you will see an explosion of half-blooded births within a year. Nothing entices a man or woman so much as that which is doubly forbidden. Rather than a solution, my lords and ladies, you would have _created_ your problem."

A grey-haired gentleman began laughing weakly, his lined face wrinkling into a sheepish smile.

"The lad may have the right of that. Crikey, I still remember how I drank more during Prohibition than I ever did in my entire life! And that's saying something too."

"Hear hear!" Randall called out again grinning impishly.

Gottwald began. "But surely if one made known the ills of mixing the blood more widely, this could better inform—"

"Irrelevant." Lelou interrupted. "We do not need to outlaw an act to improve an already necessary education now, do we? In fact, I'd say that criminalisation would put a damper to any strides gained by education." She held up her hands, palms outstretched. "One makes demands while the other offers people a choice. Which do you think our _enlightened_ society will more readily receive?"

The knight looked to be at a loss for words at that.

He started laughing ruefully. "It would seem that I had best stick to combat on the field than duel words with you, Lamperouge. Slash harkens and terrorists I can handle. The devastating arguments of a rising statesman though is another beast altogether."

"Rising statesman, my lord?" Lelou chuckled lightly. "Hardly. Strange ambitions are a man's ruin, I always say. No, I have no pretensions towards such a position. I only ever wish to serve my prince."

Gottwald smiled. "Very worthy of you, Lamperouge. And might I say unexpected? Only goes to show that you cannot depend on hearsay when it comes to a person's character. I will endeavour to correct the next fool to disparage you in my presence, I assure you."

The group before them chorused in agreement as the baroness took her by the arm cheerily.

"Well now, dear friends, all this lively talk has just been _so_ fascinating. But I believe I see my dear niece and nephew roaming yonder there." She turned to Lelou, a warm smile playing at her lips. "I should very much like to introduce my newest friend to them, Lelouch."

_Meet the family now, eh? _

_Oh joy. _

"It would be my pleasure, Lady Randall."

She inclined her head politely at the knight and his companions and walked off slowly with the baroness in arm.

The woman started giggling the moment they were out of earshot. "Did you truly meant everything you said?" Randall asked archly.

Lelou smiled. _Not a single word_._ Let them ignore the half-bloods until the problem grows big enough to stare them in the face by all means._

"I don't see why you'd think otherwise, m'lady."

Randall raised an elegant brow.

"You are supposed to call me by name, Lelouch. I thought we agreed on that. Also it's _m'lady_ now, is it? And after you talked so finely with Lord Gottwald too. Just what changed I wonder?"

Lelou stiffened imperceptibly. The baroness may act like one but she's no fool.

"I _do _know how to talk proper when I need to, you know. _My lady_." She glanced at the baroness in faint challenge. "But it doesn't mean I have to all the time right, Celia? Especially if I'm talking to a _friend_."

"Indeed." Randall murmured in a pleased tone.

"I must say though, you keep rather interesting company. Why the Purist Faction?"

The baroness laughed ruefully. "It cannot be helped. My family has been aligned with the Purists for so long that most of the people there have practically known me since birth. A bit hard to outgrow that kind of acquaintance, won't you say?"

"I suppose so."

Randall nudged her arm then and pointed. "Now do you see that young lady there in the yellow gown? My dear niece Marika. Is she not prettiest lady in the entire room? Aside from _me_ that is."

She glanced at the girl in question standing at a distance near one of the tall window walls talking animatedly with a blonde girl. She will _concede_ this Marika was cute with her shoulder-length brown hair and petite stature, but hardly the prettiest in the room. More interesting though was that she looked to be more or less the same age as Nunnally.

"Aren't you a bit young to be an aunt to that lady?" Lelou asked incredulously.

The baroness burst into peals of delighted laughter. "Oh but you do know how to flatter an old woman, Lelouch!" She smiled brightly. "I will be thirty-one years this summer, no sprightly spring maiden any longer by any means."

"Even so, thirty-one is…" Lelou looked at her meaningfully.

"My brother the Baron Soresi is seventeen years my elder." Randall explained. "He married young in life too. Our parents were _furious_ with him...but well, it all turned out alright in the end. I was only a schoolgirl when Marika was born, younger still when her brother was. And when their mother passed on, I more or less raised the girl. She's very much like my own daughter and as dear as one to me."

_But if Soresi is her maiden name, then…_

"And did you also marry young in life, Celia?" Lelou asked, eyeing their surroundings warily. She did _not_ need a jealous husband to come charging in and accuse her of taking liberties with his wife. Not that she did, or even remotely wanted to at any rate.

The hand clutching her arm tightened. "I did. Far too young." Randall answered shortly.

"Ah." Lelou commented delicately, and left it at that.

Randall's face brightened quickly. A little _too_ bright this time to be true, Lelou observed.

"I am certain you and Marika will get along handsomely." Randall gushed excitedly. "Both of you are close in age after all. Ah, how old are you again Le—"

"Lelouch!" Her brother's voice called out causing them both to start in surprise.

Clovis came striding impressively through bowing and curtsying nobles, flanked by four members of his Royal Guard garbed in their finest dress uniforms. She and Randall followed suit paying their respects to the prince before them, Lelou sneaking a curious glance at her brother as she did. He did not seem to have joined them to mingle among his guests.

In fact, her brother wore an oddly pinched look as he stared at the both of them.

"I had wondered where you were, Lelouch." He smiled tightly, his voice quavering slightly as he spoke. "You were…that is, I _saw_ you dancing, but then all of a sudden you vanished from my sight! Gave me a nasty shock that did."

She inwardly rolled her eyes. _So it's just Clovis being paranoid again then._

"My apologies, your highness." Randall spoke quickly before Lelou could respond. "I was the one who stole Lelouch away. He so impressed me with his charm and gallant chivalry that I could not help but show him off to my friends. Please do not be displeased with him." She threw him a winsome smile.

Strangely enough, her brother's mood did not lighten.

"Is that so, Lelouch?" Clovis asked appraising the faltering baroness with an odd gleam in his eye. "You were meeting the lady's friends? I never thought you to be the extrovert, quite the opposite actually."

"The baroness has been very _kind_, your highness. She brought me to see her friends who also treated me most _kindly_." Lelou said carefully, recognising her brother's fey mood with a certain disquiet. She urgently needed him to know that the baroness was no danger before he blew things completely out of proportion.

"At the alcove over there." She continued. "We spoke with Viscountess Silva, Dame Villetta Nu, Margrave Gottwald, Sir Charles Beauchamp, Countess—"

"Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald?" Clovis interrupted sharply, his blue eyes swivelling to her.

"…Yes."

_Whatever has gotten into him?_

_Surely speaking with a widely respected knight like the Margrave was not something blameworthy._

Her brother studied her piercingly, his gaze anticipatory as if waiting for something. Some kind of reaction or confession from her perhaps. Though just _what _he was expecting, she had not the faintest idea.

At length he nodded and sternly commanded. "You shall do no such thing again without my permission, Lelouch. Nor shall you leave my presence like that again." Without waiting to hear her reply, Clovis turned on his heel and snapped his fingers at her.

"Come! Let's go."

Leaving her standing there looking at him stunned.

_First he acts with completely unwarranted disdain and now he orders me…his own sister around like a trained dog?! _

_What's next?! Heel?! Sit?! Roll over and play dead?!_

She pressed her lips together frustratedly. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she struggled to rein in her rising temper. Clovis was in a dangerous mood now, she _knew _that_. _

But to hell with that!

She'd had her fill with this farce of living. Being made to feel inconsequential, being made to feel as meaningful as a corpse. Treated as if she were no better than a stupid dog trotting at her master's heels. She endured it from her brother's subjects.

And now in front of every snickering noble in Area Eleven, even her own brother…who had sworn she would be _happy…_even he would so openly slight her?!

Lelou glared at Clovis' retreating back and bursted out angrily.

"I'm afraid I can't do that!"

The noise in the ballroom died away completely at her words. Shocked fascinated stares swung between Lelou and their suddenly stock-still prince.

_Wait… what the hell am I even doing?_

After a long drawn-out pause, her brother casually replied.

"Oh? And why is that so?"

Clovis turned and gazed impassively at her, an expression so foreign to what Lelou normally saw on her brother and one she must admit was utterly unnerving.

Her mind raced for an acceptable excuse.

"I cannot leave just yet. I-I owe the lady a dance, and a gentleman always keeps his word. You taught me that, my prince." Lelou answered eventually, praying that nobody heard the slight tremor in her voice from the lie.

Belatedly, Lelou realised that it might not have been a very good idea after all, deflecting the issue to Randall.

Clovis shifted his gaze to the trembling baroness, who immediately sank into a fearful curtsy. His body loosened then and turned predatory, his lips curving into a terrible smile. At that moment, she began to fear. A deep sinking feeling unfurling in the pits of her stomach.

Not for herself, no.

But for Randall… _no… _Celia.

No matter what schemes Lelou may suspect of the baroness, it did not mean she deserved to bear the brunt of her capricious brother's ire, her brother whose will in Area Eleven was as good as law.

Not on her behalf. Not because of a thoughtless lie she had told.

"I did teach you that now, did I not?" Clovis mused, picking at his cuffs almost distractedly. "But Lelouch, my dear boy, I'm afraid you have a _long _way to go before your dancing can pass muster. Truly, what was that _horrendous_ display? Completely unworthy of this scarlet… _beauty_."

Clovis laughed out loud, mocking. His laughter echoed deafeningly by his sycophantic subjects.

Lelou allowed her cheeks to burn, bowing her head in humble contrition and mechanically tugging the edges of her black coat in seeming humiliation. In exchange for forgiveness, Clovis wanted a show, she realised stiffly.

She'll give him his show.

She could only hope that he refocused his ire on her and not the baroness while he enjoyed it.

Her brother flashed his thousand-watt smile at her. "Allow me to teach you another lesson, Lelouch." He extended his hand to Celia who had no recourse but to helplessly accept. "Play a waltz!" He hollered to the band.

Music played immediately as her brother roughly pulled Celia to her feet and straight into his arms. "Watch closely, Lelouch!" Clovis called out cheerily, sweeping the distressed-looking lady across the ballroom floor. "This is how a gentleman dances a waltz!" He placed his hands under Celia's arms, easily lifting and spinning the frazzled baroness high above the ground as onlookers whooped and hollered in cruel amusement.

_I'm sorry, Celia_, she thought remorsefully. _I'm so sorry._

"What are the rest of you layabouts doing?" Her brother cried out to the watching crowd. "The music is playing! Dance and be merry, for goodness sake!"

Scores of lords and ladies eagerly heeded their master's call, laughing gaily as they glided across the floor in whirling pairs. A riot of colours swirled before Lelou's eyes, a sea of bright silk swishing to the beat of the waltz.

And at its centre danced her brother and Celia. They made for a handsome pair, she noted distantly, Celia's natural grace brought out by Clovis' swift steps and dashing figure. That is they _would_ have, if not for the cold gleam in the prince's eye and the lady's clear discomfort as she subtly cringed from his tight hold.

Was _Baron_ Randall not watching the same thing, she wondered. Where was he now when his lady wife needed him most?

Lelou's mouth twisted with anger, and not a little self-loathing.

"Are you pleased with yourself now, boy?" A rich baritone voice spoke quietly from her right.

She turned to the figure that had silently appeared next to her, a man with light brown hair, tall in stature and lithe of body yet strong-looking all the same. He wore a suit of deep blue with matching trousers, shiny black oxfords and a deep crimson cravat. Pinned on his left lapel was the familiar laureled sword of a knight and the single red wing of the Purists.

"I don't see what you mean, Sir…?"

"Soresi." The man snapped, glaring down at Lelou with burning pale blue eyes. "And you know perfectly well what I meant, you whoreson."

Taking two quick steps towards her, the man smoothly closed the gap between them. His purpose made clear when Lelou felt the cold kiss of a knifepoint pricking at her hip.

"Move." Soresi hissed, prodding the subtly concealed knife threateningly into Lelou's side. "And if you squeal or squirm, I'll gut you like the pig you are."

* * *

The sharp edge of the knife prickled at her suddenly hyper-sensitive skin.

Her heart racing, she nonetheless donned her best nonchalant face for her would-be assassin, her eyes flickering swiftly to her brother's guards.

_No luck_, she realised with dismay. Rather than look her way, they kept their watchful gaze fixed on their liege lord still dancing away without a care.

The tip of the knife sunk slowly into her side. "Did you think I was bluffing?" Soresi said tensely. "I said _move_."

"You keep saying that." Lelou said dismissively, her mind furiously calculating the chances of each possible gambit. "But move _where_?"

"The balcony. Now. And if you even think—"

"Of squealing or squirming, you'll piggishly cut me like the prig you deliriously seem to think I am." Lelou cut in, smirking contemptuously. "I'm not _deaf. _Though I do wonder whether you are as dumb as you look."

The knife dug across her skin steadily, pain blossoming from her side as hot as a burning brand. "You're a real piece of work, aren't you?" Soresi hissed into her ear.

"Takes one to know one." Lelou shot back snippily, refusing to cry out from the pain.

"You must think you're so _clever_."

"Thinking _is_ the province of intellectuals."

"Intellectual? Hah! A boy like you coming from dirt playing at being important. I knew you must have thought yourself something _special_ but even this is—"

"Better a commoner than a common assassin every time, I'll say." She interrupted the man's rant. "You must have some pretty messed-up priorities to think otherwise mister."

Lelou heard the frustrated gnashing of teeth come from behind her as the man struggled in vain for a cutting reply to that.

It sounded like music to her ears.

"Move." Soresi ordered hoarsely. "I will not repeat myself."

Lelou glanced at the still oblivious Clovis and then at his guards again, scowling frustratedly.

_So much for the rescue plan, that useless fool. _

After all the trouble she went through to get that visible wound she needed to properly accuse a knight. But what was the point of it all if her dolt brother never came running to save her in the first place?

_I'll need to tend to my own rescue then_, she thought grimly. _Only three scenarios seem most likely from his words and conduct. Though since his name is Soresi… _

_Still, let's play along first and see what other conditions he clears. _

She dragged her feet towards the balcony, the man surreptitiously following closely behind. As Lelou crossed that threshold into the empty open space with the throbbing sticky gash at her side, the knifepoint still poised over her back and the high possibility that she just might not leave this place alive, the utter irony of it all struck her.

_The balcony at last. Freedom, salvation and my sweet sister. _

She convulsed with choked fits of hysterical laughter, uncaring of the sharp twinge of pain that shot down her side.

"You find this funny?" Soresi asked suspiciously.

"Oh _no_." Lelou choked out, grinning madly. "Private joke. You wouldn't understand."

The man scoffed. "Whatever."

"So…" Lelou spoke after a momentary silence. "Are you even a real knight, Soresi? Or do you just like playing dress-up?"

The knifepoint jabbed at the bloody wound at her side causing Lelou to grimace at the renewed pain.

"As if I would sully my honour in such a fashion." Her captor replied curtly. "I have served honourably in the Britannian army for eight years, won countless victories and sent many a terrorist to their miserable graves. What illustrious deeds can _you_ boast of other than fucking the prince?"

Lelou's eyes widened with surprise at the man's last few vindictive words.

The Area Eleven upperclass gossip mill may have been circulating all kinds of lurid rumours regarding Lelouch's background, character and sexuality but never ones that implicated Clovis. For one thing, spreading such stories here would have been an act akin to committing suicide. More importantly though was that it would not have even made sense with her brother's preference for women being almost universally known.

The only people who were told the story of her being Clovis' lover were her brother's sworn guards and closest household retainers.

All of whom also knew she was a woman.

_Which of them betrayed Clovis and me?_

She glanced behind carefully at her captor. "And where did you get that notion? Of me… and the prince?"

"Did you think that no one would guess? How rich! Clutching the prince's hands and mooning into his eyes all the time. Anyone with eyes to see can discern just how you hoodwinked his highness into taking you under his wing. Certainly not for some farfetched tale of owing your conveniently deceased parents a debt!"

Lelou felt a vein thrum near her temple.

_Clutching Clovis' hands?! Mooning into his eyes?! When?!_

"The prince is a man." Lelou responded firmly, biting down her annoyance. "_I _am a man."

Soresi sneered. "So the prince decided he liked men as well. What does that have to do with anything?"

Lelou paused a beat.

"You're right. Absolutely nothing."

_So, nobody told then. He came up with it on his own_, she thought. _That's something at least._

She drew a deep breath and released it slowly. "I suppose you begrudge me for it then? Is that what this is all about? Outrage? Or perhaps even _jealousy?"_ Lelou smirked mockingly.

"No!"

Lelou let out a yelp of surprised pain as Soresi unceremoniously yanked a fistful of her hair, pulling her head sideways and exposing her neck. Furious pale blue eyes glared into her own, the knifepoint going from her side to her jugular.

"No." The man repeated breathing heavily down at her. "_Celia._ How… how _dare_ you…"

_Ah so it's the second scenario after all_, she smiled inwardly.

"And what exactly were _you_ daring with this little rendezvous?" Lelou asked gazing up coldly at her furious captor. "When his highness comes to me tonight, and he _will _mind you, do you think he will not spot the little paper cut you made at my side?"

Soresi barked a humourless laugh. "Did you really think you were walking out of here alive?"

"I do not think. I _know."_ Lelou declared. "What do you think will happen to you if I'm carved up all bloody? You will only lose your rank, your honour… your _head_. Pretty pointless to ask really."

She smirked. "What do you think will happen to Celia Randall? Now _that's_ a question."

The hand grabbing at her hair wrenched suddenly, turning Lelou to fully face her enraged captor.

His face caught in a snarl and his teeth bared, Soresi advanced dangerously forcing her to retreat backwards towards the railings. Shakily, he brandished the knife over her face, the light gleaming off its wicked bloodstained edge. She glanced nervously at it for one doubting heartbeat before ruthlessly ramming the feeling down.

_I will win this_, she swore to herself.

"You filthy _pleb..._" Soresi snarled, his pupils wide and dilated. "If it weren't for her, I would… I _would have_…"

"Would _have?"_ Lelou echoed mockingly before glaring at the man in cold fury. "I am _the_ filthy pleb, damn you. _Prince Clovis'_ filthy common mud-stained pleb. You would have done _what?!_ Just do it then! _Show_ me what you would have done!"

She lunged her head threateningly at her captor. "_DO IT!_" Lelou bellowed at him.

Soresi roared like an animal and flung her hard to the ground.

The world exploded in pain. She cried out without meaning to. Her side was on fire, acid had been poured over it, ten thousand stabbing knives had taken to it. Or so it felt that way. Black spots danced in her vision. She curled in shakily on herself, hand desperately pressed to her side, gasping shallow breaths of air. Her bones ached, she felt tired and cold and so very _done_.

The sound of the knife clattering to the ground felt like a pyrrhic victory.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

She heard the man mutter from a distance.

Lelou gingerly turned to lie on her back, groaning as she did. She laid like that for a while breathing shakily, hand still pressed to her side, eyes upturned to the dim obscured stars faintly twinkling overhead. _Is Nunnally also sitting under these very stars_, she wondered in a daze. _Does she miss me the same way I so desperately miss her? _

Then Soresi stepped into view gazing down at her expressionlessly, taking even the stars away from her.

"You weren't supposed to be this way. You weren't supposed to act this way." Soresi informed her.

A tired smile quirked at the corner of her lips.

"No. I guess I wasn't. Someone like me, friendless save for the prince and well… physically underwhelming, I was supposed to be a scared little boy, right?"

The man's eyes widened in surprise.

"A girlish pretty boy, soft and weak." Lelou continued. "One you could easily bully into the task of gaining Celia the prince's forgiveness. That was your plan, right?"

Soresi stared down at her for a moment and started laughing bitterly.

"You… you're a real piece of work, you know that?"

"I've been told that, yes."

Soresi removed his suit jacket and began casually tearing strips from the inner layer. "How long since you figured it out?" He asked quietly.

Lelou turned away from him, staring thoughtfully at the fallen knife a few feet away.

"When you told me to move to the balcony rather than stab me there and then, I calculated that there could only be two scenarios." _Well, three actually but you need not know that. _"One, that as a member of the Purist Faction you were outraged by my defiance of Prince Clovis and wanted to dispose of me quietly. Or two, that because you are a Soresi, a relative of Celia's, you wished to aid her while teaching me a lesson I will not soon forget."

_Or three, that you were sent by forces from Pendragon who had figured everything out and plotted to off me discreetly._

She continued. "If it were the first case, you would have the advantage. But since my defiance of the prince was a recent event, you would not have had much time to plan. You would most likely be alone in this so going to the empty balcony where I could find a way to turn the tables on you was much safer than struggling in the ballroom where sympathisers may emerge willing to collaborate. And if it were the second case as it _did_ turn out to be, well…" Lelou turned her gaze back to the closely-listening man and shrugged eloquently. "I win from the very start."

_If it were the third case, then it would have been checkmate for me._

"You figured out everything from the very beginning then." Soresi sighed, throwing his torn-up jacket to the floor. "I was just dancing in the palm of your hand the whole time."

Lelou snorted. "Hardly in my _palm_. If that were the case, then you'd be in my place all collapsed on the floor and I'd be the one towering all over you, gloating."

"But even so…" Soresi hesitated for a moment and dropped to his knees. He placed the strips of torn silk on the fallen remains of his jacket and folded his hands over his thighs fastidiously.

"And what are you doing?" Lelou asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Collapsing onto the floor." Soresi replied drily. "And well… I am _not_ begging for your forgiveness. But I will beg you for mercy."

The man bowed his head. "Please have mercy on my aunt Celia. She's family, but more than that she's family who _cares_. She has looked after my sister for years when I could not. She has her flaws, I will be the first to admit that. But she does not deserve to be scorned for something so petty. I'll take full responsibility for my actions towards you, only please… help her."

_Fool_, she thought.

_You think I did not already know that? That I did not feel shame? That I had not already planned to do all that and from the very start too?_

_But… I dare say this is the best chance I've gotten yet to start playing the game on my own terms._

Lelou clutched her side and slowly sat up, a grimace of pain twisting her lips as she did. She sat there silently then, eyeing the humbled nobleman with an air of mocking superiority

"I'm a petty commoner, you know?" Lelou casually said at last. "Calculative, stingy and damn cheap. That's the lowly kind of person I am. Well…" She chuckled. "…of course what I'm trying to say is… do you think I do things for _free?"_

Soresi scowled darkly at that before his face turned impassive once more. "Name your price." He said stiffly.

"You are a dead man." Lelou told him steepling her fingers together as she appraised the knight. "I could walk out of here alive and you would be dead the instant I tell the prince. I could be removed from here in a body bag and you would still be dead…well _deader_ than dead by the time my grief-stricken prince is done with you. You are dead either way." She smiled amusedly. "Do you know what this means?"

Lelou leaned close to the bowed unmoving man and whispered delightedly into his ear.

"I _own _you."

To his credit, Soresi did not so much flinch at that clear provocation.

Lelou drew back and smiled contentedly. "From now on, every breath you take, every beat of your heart is something you have because I _gave_ it to you. So when you ask my price for helping Lady Randall regain the prince's favour and by default the court's regard, this then is what I shall ask."

She reached out with a finger and raised Soresi's chin until their eyes met.

"Be my ally, willingly. Follow my command. Aid me when I am in danger. Come to me when I summon you. Do all this uncomplaining and without silently trying to undermine me."

She withdrew her hand and waited for Soresi's answer.

"Be your loyal _dog_ then." The man spoke at length, blue eyes boring intensely into her own.

She smirked.

"I wager you find it repulsive to your knightly honour to be a commoner's dog? _You_ were the one who said you would take full responsibility for your actions towards me. Being my dog is taking responsibility. Being my dog _willingly_ is Celia's price."

Soresi's hands shook, frustratedly curling into fists at his trousers before stilling.

"Very well. I accept."

"Swear it on your honour as a knight." Lelou demanded, feeling hardly secure with just a few cryptic words. Extracting a knightly vow from the proud prickly man was at least better insurance.

Soresi gritted his teeth. "I swear upon my honour to do all that you ask of me. May my sword break, my shield shatter and my arm falter should this vow prove false. May the heavens that stand witness to this oath rain down vengeance should I prove forsworn."

"Duly noted." Lelou smiled widely, the heady feeling of triumph rising to her head like champagne bubbles. She slyly offered Soresi her hand, holding it out for a shake. "Lelouch Lamperouge, pleased to make your acquaintance."

The man hesitantly took her hand and shook it, a slight scowl darkening his face. "Kewell Soresi, yours." He muttered half-heartedly.

_Mine indeed._

"I think we'll get along _just_ fine, Sir Kewell Soresi."

* * *

Lelou undid the silken strips that bound her torso in a makeshift bandage. The folded cravat that she had repurposed to serve as a pack came away caked in rusty dried blood revealing the angry gash beneath. She removed the rest of her clothes and went to stand under the running water of her shower.

Soresi had grudgingly offered to help bind her wounds after their altercation. He had looked at Lelou in resignation and said it was only right for him as the one who had inflicted the wound to do so. She had to quickly slap away the hand that had moved to lift her shirt.

"I don't need you _prodding_ at it anymore." Lelou had stiffly told the man who had blanched slightly in mortification at her words.

Of course, what she really did not need was Soresi finding out that the Lelouch Lamperouge he had just sworn to serve was actually a woman and a princess that was supposed to be dead and all the other tiresome unpleasant details.

Instead, Lelou had sent him off blithely saying that commoners bandaged themselves on their own all the time. It turned out that the knight had left not a moment too soon. Lelou had just enough time to finish her slapdash attempt at bandaging with the torn silk strips before Sir Frank Marden, the member of Clovis' Royal Guard usually assigned to her protection, wandered in sheepishly.

Clovis it seemed was no longer wroth with her, as Marden had placatingly told her. In fact, her brother believed she had withdrawn to sulk somewhere and had magnanimously decided to indulge her womanish needs by 'giving her space'.

"But he didn't want to leave you unprotected, you know, with all these nasty mean nobles walking about just looking to knife you in the back." Marden had told a bemused Lelou.

"So he says to me 'Frank, you go watch over her while she fumes and rages. Make sure nothing _ontward_ happens to my darling girl or I'll have your head for it.' So there it is m'lady, you feel free to fume and rage. I'll keep watch don't you worry."

He had grinned nervously at her and gestured with his hand for her to carry on.

"Why thank you, Marden. But I think I'll pass on that." Lelou had replied drily the wound at her side throbbing the whole time, thinking then that her life was one huge spectacular cosmic joke.

She stepped out of the shower and quickly dried herself with a towel, taking care to use another clean cloth to pat down on the gash.

It was an ugly misshapen wound running five inches long Lelou noted as she took stock of her injury. Thankfully, it was not nearly as deep as she had initially feared it would be. While her fall had aggravated it, with a large black-and-blue patch already forming an unsightly halo around the oozing gash, Soresi had not severed any major vein or artery so it was hardly life-threatening.

Still if left alone, the wound would likely fester.

She stared with dread at the bottle of whiskey in her hand that a hapless Marden had appropriated for her from the cellars and shakily poured out two shots.

_I will need to raid the medical supplies discreetly first thing tomorrow, _she thought grimly. _But this will have to do for now._

Lelou downed both shots in quick succession, the alcohol burning a fiery liquid trail down her throat. She grabbed her leather belt and bit down firmly. Her hand trembling with trepidation, she poured the rest of the bottle's contents over her wound.

It felt like being set on fire. She screamed and flailed and bit harshly into her belt, the bottle rolling out of her nerveless grip. And then she screamed and flailed and bit some more. With a violently shaking hand, she grabbed the maxi pad on the vanity top and duct-taped it over her wound. Her ordeal complete, she slumped down by the vanity breathing hoarsely. _I am never doing this again_, she vowed to herself.

Her brother was waiting for her in her room. Already dressed in his nightgown and slippers, Clovis sat at the edge of her bed nervously fiddling with what appeared to be a blue rose crown in his hands.

"I thought I told you I did not want a rose crown." Lelou said severely, crossing her arms in displeasure.

He looked up startled and gave her a sheepish grin. "I know, but I already had it made in truth thinking that you would adore the idea for sure. You and Euphie used to make each other flower crowns come spring as I recalled. So I thought…well…"

Lelou sighed. "Yes, we did. And with…Nunnally too. But the joy in it was _making _the crown, brother. _Together. _Not wearing it and prancing around like a fool."

"Oh." Clovis turned away, his expression pained before continuing. "Still, it would be too much of a waste to throw away something so lovely without at least trying it on, don't you agree? Come here."

"No." She answered flatly.

Clovis looked at her incredulously. _"No?"_

"No." Lelou repeated, her gaze at him cool and unwavering. "I will not be your dog, brother. To be summoned and dismissed, to be forbidden this and allowed that, to be made to perform _tricks_… I won't_. _So, _no_."

He stared at her for awhile and sighed heavily. "My proud disdainful sister, so this is what that was all about then?" Clovis got to his feet and walked slowly towards her. Raising the crown above her head, he then fixed it tenderly on her brow.

"There. _Beautiful_." He whispered, hand slipping down to tuck a stray lock behind her ear.

"I am still angry with you."

He chuckled. "I expect you are. You always did hold your grudges close to your chest."

She would not allow him to side-track her though. "Did you have to shame me so in front of so many people?" Lelou demanded angrily.

His face turned defensive. "I-I was not thinking… Y-you disappeared all of a sudden! I feared the worst! Do you not remember the depths a scorned noble would sink to humble a commoner upstart? Your mother—-"

"Do not speak to me of my mother!" She exclaimed furiously, jabbing a finger on his chest. "You do not _get _to speak to me of my mother!"

He held his hands up nervously. "Alright! I won't!"

She continued, her face fairly radiating heat. "And what did Lady Randall ever do—"

"And _you_ will not speak to me of Baroness Randall." Clovis interrupted tightly, his expression no longer mild. "You will not defend her to my face. That woman… she is not the _proper_ sort, do you understand?"

"Again!" Lelou seethed. "_Again_ you are telling me what to do and what not to do! Lady Randall was the only person in that room to treat me kindly, to not disdain me as dirt! I care _not_ that you think her improper of all things! If proper meant Calares sneering at me or your 'respectable' subjects avoiding me like the plague, then I'd rather be with her than the most fine upstanding _proper_ person in all the Area!"

"She had her own husband crippled! She's rumoured to have taken half a dozen lovers! She mocked my swimsuit design!" Clovis exploded at her.

"And what of it?!" She shouted back belligerently.

He grabbed her roughly by her shoulders and hissed. "I will _not_ allow any romantic entanglement you plan on having with that woman. With all the authority vested in me as your older brother and guardian, I disapprove of her! Categorically!"

_What…_

She stared up at her heavily breathing indignant brother and saw that yes, he was being completely one-hundred percent serious.

"Clovis. You…you are the largest idiot… the greatest _fool_ to ever walk the face of this earth." Lelou told him wonderingly.

"And now you heap me with undeserved insults!" Clovis exclaimed heatedly, apparently not comprehending her meaning. "I just warned you of that woman's unsuitability, of her ill repute and still you take her side! If that is not a sign of her dangerous influence, I know—"

"I am _not_ planning anything with Celia Randall." Lelou stated loudly.

"—not what is… You… you are _not_?" He blinked confusedly at her. "B-but you looked so enamoured by her! The two of you were dancing together, smiling together a-and _staring _at each other!"

She felt a familiar thrumming at her temple.

"The baroness is a woman." Lelou said firmly. "_I _am a woman."

Clovis scoffed. "Love is love. What does gender have to do with anything?"

_What the hell is going on with tonight and people accusing me of relationships I have absolutely no interest in?!_

"I have no interest in women." She stated at length, just barely holding back the urge pummel her brother in sheer annoyance.

"Oh?" Clovis perked up in interest. "But you told me you had no boyfriends back at that school of yours. Are you telling me now you had no girlfriends either?"

"_None._"

He covered his eyes with a hand dramatically, as if weeping out of some great agony.

"_Lelou_. Lelou, Lelou, Lelou. My dearest sister. Whatever are you doing with your _life?"_

_Ugh. Stop._

"Spare me." Lelou told her brother frigidly.

"But this will not do! This will not do at all! You are in the springtime of your life, Lelou! And in spring, there must be _love. _A life without love is like a year without summer! A life without love is no life at all!_"_

"But I already have a lover, don't I?" She responded drily.

Clovis looked flabbergasted. "_Who?"_

"You."

He laughed nervously at that. "Yes…well…that…"

"So as I said." Lelou continued relentlessly. "_Spare me_."

She walked slowly to her bed and sat down at the edge, trying not to wince from the stinging pain at her side.

"You will have to make things right with Lady Randall. _Publicly_, you hear me?"

"Make things right with The Woman, she says. And she's not enamoured with The Woman, she says." Clovis grumbled.

"_Brother..._"

"Ah, fine! I _will_, Lelou. Are you happy now?"

"_Quite_. Also why were you displeased that I spoke with Margrave Gottwald?" Lelou asked distractedly, as she laboriously climbed into her sheets.

"…When was I displeased?" He responded in a careful tone.

_How suspicious._

She looked sharply at her brother who was indeed averting his eyes from her gaze.

"Do not play coy with me, brother. Tell me the _truth_." Lelou demanded.

Clovis reluctantly met her eyes, his expression conflicted. He walked to sit by her side and took her hands into his own.

"Before I tell you, you must promise me you will not do anything rash." Clovis told her seriously. "No confrontations, no wild schemes, no plotting. You just leave it be, do you promise?"

Lelou looked her brother solemnly in the eye.

"I promise." She lied glibly.

A rueful smile quirked at the corner of his mouth.

"Why do I still feel the approach of impending doom then, Lelou?" He asked fondly and then reached out with his hand to lightly touch one of the flowers still on her head.

"Do you know why I chose blue roses, little sister?"

"Something to do with its meaning, I suppose? You did so loved to wax poetical about the language of flowers back in Pendragon."

He smiled. "Yes. Blue roses…they mean 'impossible'."

She raised a brow. "Are you telling me I am an impossible person then?"

"Not at all!" Clovis laughed. "No, you are impossible, Lelou, because you are a _miracle_. My dear sister miraculously returned to me." He engulfed her in a warm hug, his hands gently drawing her head to rest on his chest. "And I will do anything to protect my impossible miracle, do you understand?"

She patted him on the back uncertainly, a part of her rather touched by his words.

The other _greater_ part just wished he would not press so tightly on her injured side.

After a while, Lelou pulled away slowly and looked at her brother pointedly.

"So…you were saying about Lord Gottwald?"

Clovis continued to remain silent at first. "He came to Area Eleven for you and Nunnally." He said finally.

She felt her heart stutter wildly. "What did you _say?!_" Lelou breathed hoarsely, her mind going blank from the absolute shock.

"Ah! Not that he thinks you are alive of course!" Clovis hastily added. "No no, I meant he came to serve here out of your memory. Yours and Nunnally's. He sought an audience with me and told me that himself."

"_Oh_. How…touching, I suppose. But why act so apprehensively then, brother?"

"Lord Gottwald also told me… he said that he once served your mother, Lady Marianne, as one of her guards. He was one of her protectors that day… the day she died. He told me he considered her death his greatest failure. And your supposed death along with Nunnally's his second greatest failure."

Her heart was beating wildly at her brother's revelation.

_This was it, _she thought. _The missing piece. Someone who was there. Someone who can finally tell me why Mother was killed. And who killed her. _

"Lelou?" Clovis urgently shook her, his eyes pleading. "Lelou, don't. I know what you must be thinking and feeling. But please don't. It is too _dangerous_."

"But why not?" Lelou argued tightly, her hands bunching the fabric of her nightgown. "He came to Area Eleven out of loyalty, did he not? Why should such a person betray me?"

"That may be the case six years ago! Who's to say it would be the same now?"

She released a frustrated breath.

_I know that, brother. I do. I am no fool._

"I _will _find out who murdered my mother, Clovis." Lelou said finally, her words measured and cold. "Nothing in this world will stop me from that nor will anything thwart Marianne's daughter from seeking her vengeance."

"…I know."

"Good. Now…" She reached up and promptly pecked her startled brother on the cheek. "_There_._"_

_"_Wha-what was _that?!_" Clovis stammered, his face turning red and his hand shakily reaching up to touch his cheek in disbelief.

"That was a thank you. For telling me. You specified it as a form of gratitude that day you decided to keep me. As I recalled it was 'a hug or a kiss on the cheek', was it not?" Lelou told him coolly, secretly amused to see him so flustered. "Did you find it displeasing? I _could_ take it back if you wish." She reached out to wipe his cheek.

He jumped nimbly out of her reach.

"No, you don't!"

Clovis grinned happily. "I will not let you deny that you've ever shown me affection anymore, sister! You _care_ for your big brother, admit it! I'm melting through the ice over your heart and slowly but _surely_—"

"Whatever." She flatly dismissed, removing the crown and setting it down on her bedside table. "Now are you finally going to leave me in peace or will you be spending the night here?"

To keep up the ruse of being Clovis' lover, her brother would sometimes spend the night in her room. Nights that he would dread and that she in turn was forced to suffer through stoically.

As a display of chivalry, her brother had declared he would not befoul a maiden by sleeping together however innocently on the same bed, tragically insisting that he would sleep on the couch instead. But a pampered prince was not a person accustomed to such an ordeal, so Clovis would every so often mumble loud _annoying_ complaints in the middle of the night.

Clovis laughed nervously. "We shall both of us sleep peacefully tonight, I believe."

"More good news."

She lifted the sheets above her and gingerly turned to her uninjured side, the blue roses on her bedside table coming into sight as she did. Lelou appraised the lovely pale blue petals thoughtfully and called out to her leaving brother.

"Brother?"

"Yes, Lelou?" Came the faint reply.

She chewed on her bottom lip. "I just remembered. You got the meaning wrong, blue roses."

"…Oh?"

"Blue roses mean 'impossible', but in a different sense. In the language of flowers, blue roses mean 'an unattainable—'"

"Good night, Lelou." Clovis said abruptly and shut the door.

* * *

_To be continued..._


End file.
